


Blue Moon

by The_Carnivorous_Muffin



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Adultery, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Family Drama, Friendship/Love, Prostitution, Romantic Comedy, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:29:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 45,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25639537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Carnivorous_Muffin/pseuds/The_Carnivorous_Muffin
Summary: In some other universe, Edward was a little more insistent about that "you can just sleep with Jacob" plan that he proposed to Bella inside a tent. Replace Jacob with Carlisle, insert Carlisle's need to fix the dumpster fire that is his son's relationship, and add in a dash of upset Bella and terrible things ensue.
Relationships: Carlisle Cullen/Bella Swan, Edward Cullen/Bella Swan
Comments: 317
Kudos: 640





	1. The Proposition

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vinelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vinelle/gifts).



This is a story of good intentions, fatal mistakes, true love, and how Carlisle Cullen unintentionally impregnates his son’s fiancée.

* * *

Contrary to popular opinion, Carlisle did not immediately jump at Edward’s offer.

In fact, despite his superb hearing and inhuman focus, he wasn’t sure he’d heard it right.

“Pardon?” he asked, looking up from his desk and blinking in confusion at his oldest, and in many ways, youngest son.

Edward didn’t falter.

He was sitting across from Carlisle in his study, a somber look on his perpetually boyish face, and giving the entire meeting a very formal air. This was not him asking a simple question, or even stray advice, but a serious discussion that would require all of Carlisle’s focus.

You would think that would be warning enough. Sadly, Carlisle was getting used to it. These kinds of talks had become increasingly common since Bella Swan appeared in their lives.

First, there’d been whether or not they should kill the girl for seeing too much. Then, Edward’s inner conflict over whether to draw her in or leave her to her own devices. Then what to do with the serial rapist in Port Angeles. Then, when Bella was in too deep, how to best keep her human and if they even should. Then, Edward’s conviction that they must leave Forks to force Bella into a normal human life. Then, Edward desperately railing against Carlisle’s decision that, like it or not, Bella was going to be a vampire.

After nearly two years of this, Carlisle wasn’t sure why Edward even bothered to ask for his advice.

By the time Edward confronted him, confronted the family, he’d usually made up his mind.

Sometimes, Carlisle agreed.

Carlisle certainly hadn’t thought they should murder Bella Swan for having the misfortune of nearly being crushed by a van. Her being a witness was unfortunate, her stubborn refusal to dismiss the event even more so, but that didn’t necessitate her death.

However, when it came to Edward’s crusade to keep Bella human—

It was a noble endeavor and Carlisle didn’t begrudge him his opinion.

Some, like Emmett, embraced vampirism with open arms. Others, like Rosalie and Edward, resented their existence and Carlisle for forcing it on them. Carlisle couldn’t say he knew Bella well, they’d only had one in depth conversation, but he had the feeling that for all Edward had told her, she didn’t quite understand what she was getting herself into.

None of them did, not until it was already too late.

More, given Edward’s extreme beliefs on the nature of a vampire’s soul, to turn Bella into a vampire was to bar her entry into the afterlife.

Now, Carlisle had long grappled with the state of his own soul as a vampire. In the beginning, he’d thought like Edward did. Certainly, vampires were more inclined to the murder of sentient beings but—He did not think that he was soulless, that he was damned to be a blight on this world whether he liked it or not. He could still choose his path, it was hard, but he could do it.

In choosing to preserve mankind, he liked to believe he could be worthy of them, if not the afterlife itself.

That said, it wasn’t just about Bella anymore.

Edward had given Carlisle an impossible choice. When Bella died, he would do everything in his power to follow. To allow Bella to remain human was to knowingly condemn Edward, his oldest companion and friend, to death.

More, the Volturi knew about her now. Carlisle and Aro had always been close, friends even centuries after they parted, but Aro believed in his laws.

He’d given Bella time and spared Edward and Alice. Whether this was as a gift to Carlisle, acknowledgement of Alice’s visions, or because he was intent on recruiting the three of them was hard to say. Regardless, Aro had let them walk, but they were on borrowed time.

Edward was still convinced that he had decades before they inquired after Isabella Swan. Carlisle didn’t know if this was wishful thinking or if he really thought the Volturi had completely forgotten the human lifespan. Aro would know exactly what Edward was hoping and would make sure to check in shortly.

More, thanks to Victoria, they’d arrived in Forks only a year later. If she wasn’t turned shortly after graduation, in only a few weeks—

Carlisle would certainly be held responsible as leader of his coven. Edward, as Bella’s mate might be held even more culpable than Carlisle. The entire coven could be destroyed over something Bella desperately wanted to happen anyway.

They, Caius most likely though Carlisle feared Aro, had already tried to use Victoria’s newborn army to wipe them off the map even without Bella as an excuse.

Still, take the Volturi off the table, take Edward’s suicide off the table, and Carlisle still couldn’t say that Bella shouldn’t be a vampire.

If Bella and Edward were to have any real future, love without constant fear and self-restraint, then Bella had to be turned. Edward couldn’t go back to being human and their relationship couldn’t last the way it was now.

Carlisle didn’t necessarily like it, he wished that Bella lived in a world where this choice wasn’t made for her, but at least it was what she seemed to want anyway.

Edward was a different story.

That’s what Carlisle had thought Edward was here for.

He knew Edward had been desperately trying to get Bella to postpone being turned. Edward wanted to get married, go to college, do normal human things before Bella had to spend a decade in isolation to control her thirst.

He knew Bella wanted Edward to be the one to turn her, but if he refused, then Carlisle would do it in his stead.

He thought Edward was going to demand Carlisle reconsider, that he picture the human future that didn’t exist for Bella anymore, and that he’d make one last desperate push to change Carlisle’s mind now that they were against the clock.

Instead, Edward asked for something much worse.

“I know how it sounds,” Edward said, lifting his hands in defense, “But I need you to listen.”

Edward took a breath to steady himself, “Bella—Bella wants a wedding night, when we get married, she expects a wedding night.”

Carlisle nearly said something banal like “yes” or “go on” when Edward’s words caught up to him.

Bella expected a wedding night, Edward had convinced her to marry him as a human, if that wedding night were to happen Bella would not make it to the next morning.

“Have you told her—” Carlisle started but Edward let out an angry sigh.

“I’ve told her a dozen times,” Edward said, “She never listens. I don’t know if she just doesn’t want to or if I’ve been too controlled around her. Because I’ve never broken her arm before she thinks I have perfect control! She just doesn’t understand how serious this is!”

He stood, began to pace angrily, “And I think—I know—that the only reason she’s even agreeing to getting married now is because I won’t have sex with her, won’t personally turn her, unless she does! If she finds out that we can’t have sex, then—”

“Then you won’t get married,” Carlisle finished for him.

Perhaps they shouldn’t.

Edward turned to look at him, betrayed, clearly having caught that last thought.

Carlisle wiped his face, “I’m sorry, Edward, it was a stray thought. I—”

He sighed, there was no point in hiding it, “Edward, you shouldn’t bribe someone into marriage.”

“I’m not bribing—”

Carlisle held up a hand to stop him, “I’m sure you don’t mean to, but dangling rewards over her head, things Bella sees as rewards, it’s not a reason to get married.”

Edward ran a hand through his hair, flopping back down into the seat, “You don’t understand. Bella—she’s afraid of marriage, the very idea of it. If it was up to her, we’d never get married. I—I love her, Carlisle, I want her to be my wife. I want to share every moment with her and I—If I don’t do it now, if I don’t have something to bargain with, then she’ll never do it.”

Carlisle let out a long sigh and offered, “Perhaps she’ll change her mind.”

Edward just snorted.

It was unlikely. Once you were turned, your opinions rarely changed on anything. If Bella went into vampirism disdainful of marriage, she’d likely come out of it disdainful of marriage. This would become a sore point between the pair of them forever.

Once again, Carlisle saw where Edward was coming from, but it still made him uncomfortable.

Bella had a right to her opinion.

More, she was so young. She was barely old enough to get married. If she’d been living this human life Edward wanted for her so badly, she probably wouldn’t have even thought about getting married for another four or five years at least. They had time, she didn’t have to get married as a human, she and Edward could wait as long as they wanted.

Instead it felt as if Edward was desperately rushing them into everything, trying to get it all in while Bella had a human heartbeat.

“That’s not—”

Carlisle rubbed at his temples, “They’re just thoughts, Edward, I don’t mean anything by them.”

Finally, with a sigh, Carlisle said, “Not getting married isn’t the end of the world, I didn’t get married for nearly three-hundred years. Sit down with Bella, have a frank conversation, and see if she’ll agree to a wedding without a wedding night. Perhaps just postpone the wedding night until after she’s been turned.”

Then giving Edward a chiding look, “And don’t hold turning her over her head.”

Edward slumped in his seat, “I never wanted to turn her anyway. I—She doesn’t understand that it might not be possible for me.”

Edward had endured a remarkable amount in these past few years. His control had grown in leaps and bounds thanks to Bella’s presence. However, the one time he’d tasted her blood he’d nearly killed her.

“That’s still not a reason to get married,” Carlisle said with a sigh.

Edward let out his own sigh and glumly looked across at Carlisle, “That’s not the real problem here. I—I told Bella to think carefully about what experiences she wants to have as a human. High school, college, it’s not the same for us. She’s been thinking about college—”

College, that was another four years, Carlisle didn’t know if Aro would give them that long.

“—But she’s been adamant about sex.”

Neither of them said anything after that. Just let the words hang in the air before Edward could take them back to what he’d first said to Carlisle.

“I can’t have sex with Bella,” Edward said slowly, “However, if anyone can, it’s you.”

Yes, that’s what Carlisle thought he’d said the first time.

In the background, the clock ticking on the wall was practically deafening.

“Does Bella know you’re asking me this?” Carlisle asked slowly.

“No,” Edward said, “No, I wanted to ask you first. If you agree, I’ll tell her, I’ll talk to her and—”

“Edward,” Carlisle interrupted, feeling a pit of dread growing inside his stomach, “I cannot sleep with your fiancée.”

“You’re the only one who can,” Edward insisted, leaning forward and placing his hands on Carlisle’s desk, “You have the control I lack. More, I trust you. You’ll be gentle and kind to her and you won’t—You won’t take advantage of her.”

“I’m happily married,” Carlisle pointed out.

“We’ll talk to Esme,” Edward insisted, “She, out of everyone, will understand.”

Oh, would she now? Then again, who knew, maybe she would. The fact that Edward was even proposing this made Carlisle feel as if he’d slipped into an alternate universe.

Esme had wondered aloud, more than once, what it would have been like to have had a fulfilling marriage while human. Perhaps she’d be sympathetic enough to loan out her husband.

“You plan to be happily married,” Carlisle pointed out, “What do you imagine Bella will say to this?”

  
“If she really wants sex as a human,” Edward said, “Then she’ll recognize that this is the only way.”

“She wants sex with you!” Carlisle balked, unable to help himself.

“She can’t have it with me,” Edward snapped back, “This is the closest thing I can—”

“It is not close,” Carlisle interjected, “Sex with another man, any other man, is not close!”

“Please, Carlisle, just—”

“No,” Carlisle said, standing from his desk and throwing his hands in the air, “We’re done discussing this. You’re getting married in a few weeks. This discussion is over. Go and talk to your fiancée.”

Carlisle walked out of his office, leaving Edward sitting bitterly inside.

Carlisle had meant it then.

He had fully intended to walk out and somehow force himself into forgetting that Edward had—had offered to pimp out his future bride to his surrogate father. In a few weeks Edward would be happily married, and they could pretend this whole thing had never happened.

Unfortunately, vampires never really forgot anything, and they had a lot of time to think.

Over the following days Carlisle found himself increasingly thinking about Bella Swan.

It was something that, strangely enough, he’d avoided for the past few years.

At first, she’d been an unwitting threat. Those first few weeks her blood had nearly been Edward and his family’s undoing. Then Edward had saved her life, Bella the only real witness, and there’d been the fear that she might talk and enough of the townspeople might take her seriously.

Then she’d become Edward’s girlfriend and it seemed best to let Edward handle things at his own pace. It was the first time he’d seen Edward happy, truly happy, in one-hundred years and he was adamant not to ruin it.

And why should he? They had seemed so happy together for those first few months.

As a result, the only time he’d truly talked to her was after her disastrous birthday. They’d discussed Edward, what he believed versus what Carlisle believed, the nature of vampires and religion, but they’d never really talked about Edward and Bella.

He’d never asked what she expected from the pair of them, what she wanted from her future, what she thought of Edward and what he thought of her. He’d known that she wanted to become a vampire, desperately, not only to keep up with Edward but the entire family. He knew that Edward’s leaving had only made her more desperate to be turned. As if, should she become a vampire, he could never walk out on her. He didn’t know much more than that.

He hadn’t thought he needed to.

But as Bella’s wedding steadily approached, he found himself unwillingly giving her more and more thought.

Just what had Edward told her? What had he told her about vampirism, about their family’s way of life, about marrying him? He didn’t think Edward lied to her, necessarily, but it struck Carlisle now that Edward was willing to leave out key details or distort facts for his own purposes.

More, what kind of a relationship could they possibly have when Edward was willing to give her away to his father? Even if he asked her consent, even if he asked for Carlisle’s and Esme’s, how could he even fathom it? It was as if Edward was convinced it wasn’t him that was important, he was just a cold body that could be replaced by any man, replaced by Carlisle and Bella wouldn’t even know the difference.

How could Edward believe Bella loved him, truly loved him, if that’s what he thought of her?

And she did, Carlisle didn’t have to talk to her to know it. Bella loved Edward with everything she had, everything she was. She’d been willing to sacrifice herself to save him in Italy, even after she thought he’d abandoned her in the cruelest way he could. When Edward had left her, when the family had left her, her entire world had shattered.

And Edward wouldn’t talk to her.

The more days passed the more convinced Carlisle became that Edward wouldn’t sit down and talk to her about marriage or about sex. Oh, he might drop a comment here and there, but he wouldn’t have the kind of talk they needed to have. Edward wanted to get married too badly and it didn’t seem to occur to him that Bella might end up resenting him for misleading her.

More, the real kicker, Edward wouldn’t tell Bella just what he was willing to do to compromise over the sex issue.

Carlisle didn’t blame him, how was he supposed to bring that up? Bella, I asked Carlisle to sleep with you on your wedding night, he said no, but just thought I should let you know that options exist.

Better to let sleeping dragons lie.

But they were getting married and Carlisle didn’t think that was the kind of skeleton that should be thrown into a closet.

Edward was many things, many good and some bad, but Carlisle was sure he tried to present the best of himself to Bella. What would happen if, after having married him, after having turned Bella found out all the parts of himself that he’d kept from her? What if she found out that she’d only fallen in love with the best of Edward?

If Edward was willing to do this to her, to barter behind her back with Carlisle without her knowledge, then she had a right to know before she took her wedding vows.

Had Carlisle been in her position, he would want to know.

That was when the idea started to ferment.

Unfortunately, Carlisle couldn’t simply tell her. First, he had no idea how to even put it. Second, she wouldn’t believe him.

Why should she? It sounded completely ridiculous.

If Carlisle hadn’t lived through it, he’d never believe it either.

Carlisle would simply be slandering Bella’s future husband, not something he necessarily intended to do, and she’d never listen to him again.

Edward would have to tell her.

However, he never would unless it was already too late, unless Carlisle and Esme had both agreed.

Which meant Carlisle had to agree.

She’d say no, of course, but maybe it’d give Carlisle and Bella the chance to talk without Edward hovering over their shoulders. Maybe it’d give him time to find out just what Edward had told her and to present his own opinions.

He could reassure her that marriage could wait, that she didn’t have to do this, no matter what Edward said or promised.

Besides, when else would he and Bella get a chance to sit down and talk before the wedding? The more Carlisle thought about it, the more this seemed like his only chance.

And if she stormed out and slammed the door in his face at least it’d get her and Edward talking.

And that was how Carlisle started down the path to Hell.


	2. Final Arrangements and Second Thoughts

To Carlisle’s infinite, dumbfounded, shock, Esme agreed to it.

It was two weeks before Bella’s wedding.

He, Edward, and Esme were sitting at the kitchen table. Edward had timed it for when Rosalie was conveniently out of the house. Well, perhaps convenient was a little harsh, these days Rosalie tended to give the house wide berth.

She’d made her opinion on Bella’s upcoming marriage, her upcoming transition into becoming a vampire, quite clear.

Given Alice’s extreme involvement in the wedding planning, there was no escaping it in any corner of the house. As a result, Rosalie had decided to spend the weeks between graduation and the wedding in one of their many cabins, Emmett gleefully escaping Alice’s wedding warpath and keeping his wife happy by going with her.

Still, if Rosalie were here to hear this discussion, she’d probably slowly tear off their limbs one by one and roast them over an open fire. Rosalie, while she harbored very strong opinions and an unhealthy vindictive streak, was at least sane.

Still, with any luck, all of this would be over and done with, nothing having actually happened, by the time she came home. She might still rip Edward’s arms off for his sheer nerve, but Carlisle thought he’d be able to talk her down.

In the meantime, he was a little too busy gaping at his wife.

“Esme, are you sure about this?” Carlisle asked, unable to help the look of horror on his face, “I promise, I won’t do anything without your explicit consent.”

(He wouldn’t do anything even with her consent, but Edward didn’t need to know that yet.)

Esme didn’t look at him, was carefully observing the wood patterns in the table, but slowly nodded, “I know how important this is for both Bella and you, Edward. My marriage as a human was—well, I never had the kind of joyful intimate memories Bella is looking for. I think it’s important she gets to experience that as a human. I think it’s very thoughtful of you to think about what she and you both need like this. And if she can’t with Edward then—”

“Esme,” Carlisle said, placing his hand over hers, looking to her eyes and almost begging her, “You don’t have to do this.”

She looked up at him, offered that sweet smile he’d fallen in love with so long ago, “I don’t mind, Carlisle. This isn’t about us; this is about Bella and Edward. They’ve gone through so much already. Shouldn’t something go their way?”

Carlisle wasn’t sure Bella would agree with naked Carlisle popping out of a birthday cake in place of her fiancé being “something finally going her way”. Edward, however, was grinning in relief over at Esme.

“Thank you so much Esme,” he said, “You have no idea how much this means to us.”

“Us?” Carlisle balked, “You’ve talked to Bella already?”

Carlisle would have thought it’d be obvious if he told Bella or not. Surely, there’d be some sort of fight over it. Or, oh god, maybe Bella accepted it as easily as Esme just had. Maybe Bella and Edward really were on the same page, somehow, and Carlisle was going to have to tell her, “So, I didn’t actually intend to sleep with you. How about you enjoy my high-speed internet connection and browse for porn to your heart’s content?”

… He was also going to have to avoid eye contact with Bella for the next three hundred years. There were things you just didn’t want to know about your future daughter-in-law.

Edward looked away, probably would have flushed if he was human, and sullenly answered, “No, not yet, but she’s made it very clear how much sex as a human means to her.”

“Carlisle,” Esme chided, turning her head to glare at him, “Edward just wants to make her happy.”

“I know that—”

“He’s waited nearly a hundred years to find love,” Esme continued, “And don’t say that you waited three-hundred—”

“I wasn’t—”  
  


“You know how lonely it’s been for him,” Esme motioned to Edward sullenly looking down at the table, the personification of brooding loneliness, “You know it was almost like—like a miracle, when Bella came into his life. Bella shouldn’t have any regrets walking into our lives. If this is the way to ensure it then I’m more than happy to give you away for a weekend.”

A miracle, yes, it had seemed like a miracle, hadn’t it? For almost a century Edward hadn’t simply been alone but brooding, ill at ease, and frankly depressed. As their coven grew with more and more mated pairs, as the decades passed by, he became increasingly isolated.

He lost interest in everything. He grew contemptuous not only of mankind but of his own family. Even after so many years he still viewed Rosalie with disdain and Jasper with caution. Carlisle had watched him fade into himself and all Carlisle could picture was Marcus in Volterra, whose spirit had left his body long ago but was still condemned to remain in this world that had nothing to offer him.

Even when Edward had left him and Esme, when he’d struck out on his own determined to enact vigilante justice and take his payment in blood, he’d had so much more of a spark inside him than he did just two years ago.

Then, suddenly, Bella was there. Edward wasn’t just alive again, he was happy. He was curious about the world around him, invested both in it and his own future, he played piano again, composed again—

For all that Edward had visited Volterra because of Bella, Carlisle wouldn’t hesitate to say that Bella had saved his life.

But Esme was making it seem like this was a gift to Bella. As if this was repayment for all she had done for Edward and for their family.

Carlisle didn’t think Bella was looking to be repaid. Nothing she had done, for any of them, was something she would think required gratitude. More, he didn’t think she should be looking for repayment. Love, compassion, were not things you bartered and haggled over.

More, even if she was, was this what they imagined she was looking for?

“You agreed to do this, Carlisle,” Edward pointed out, “Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts.”

“No, no,” Carlisle quickly assured, “I said I would.”

“If Esme, you, and Bella,” he gave Edward a very pointed look at that last name, “Are in agreement I will—”

Perform? Do his best? Show up? Fuck her blind? How was one supposed to put that?

“I will do what is asked of me,” he weakly finished.

Edward seemed satisfied enough. Not thrilled but satisfied. Then again, Carlisle liked to think that Edward would be put out if Carlisle was eager to have Bella in his bed. He hoped Edward would be put out if Carlisle had agreed with even the slightest enthusiasm.

It made him wonder just how Edward had expected this to be received. Clearly, he wasn’t completely happy with the way things were going, had he expected Carlisle to be more understanding? Had he expected Carlisle’s reservations to disappear?

Carlisle honestly didn’t know. Weeks after Edward proposed this and Carlisle finally worked up the nerve to agree, and he still had no idea what he’d been thinking.

Except that he seemed to want to get married no matter the cost.

If Edward caught that last thought, he didn’t show it. Instead, he seemed almost relieved that everything was coming together just as he hoped.

“Bella and I appreciate it,” Edward said with a smile, and at Carlisle’s dull look amended, “I appreciate it, but Bella will.”

“Yes,” Carlisle said distantly, “I’m sure she will.”

“Well, so it’s settled then,” Edward said, lacing his hands together and grinning at both him and Esme, “Bella and you will spend our honeymoon on Isle Esme.”

“Oh,” Esme said in genuine delight, “She’ll enjoy that.”

“What?” Carlisle blurted, “No, no, not your honeymoon, Edward.”

Edward and Esme turned as one to look at him. They were looking at him as if he’d just announced he was an alien and wished to speak with their leader.

“Edward, I will not stand in for you on your honeymoon,” Carlisle insisted.

“Carlisle, that’s what we agreed to,” Edward said slowly, “Bella and I can’t have a wedding night—”

“Yes, you can,” Carlisle insisted, “Just not now. And that’s fine, wait for your wedding night—”

“The wedding night’s an important human tradition. The honeymoon, is an important human tradition,” Edward said, ochre eyes flashing with growing anger, “It’s a tradition Bella expects, one she deserves—”

“With her husband!” Carlisle interjected, throwing his hand down on the table and wincing as he cracked the wood.

He removed his hand, fighting the urge to curse, and started again, “I agreed to have—to have sexual relations with Bella Swan, if she wants it. I did not agree to do so on your honeymoon or your wedding night.”

Edward’s face grew livid, “Then what did you agree to?!”

“I agreed to give her a human experience,” Carlisle stated, “An experience the pair of you have deemed absolutely vital, that you cannot provide her. But I won’t—I won’t take these important moments away from you. Edward, the wedding, the honeymoon, it’s not just about sex. Go with her to Isle Esme and just spend a little time with her—”

“Edward, Carlisle,” Esme hissed, looking between the pair of them, “Please!”

Edward paid her no mind, stood from his chair and shouted, “Then what’s even the point of this?!”

“The point is to make your fiancé happy!”

Carlisle was standing now too, had moved out of his chair without even realizing it. He and Edward were nearly matched for height, though Edward would always be smaller and leaner than him.

Slowly, Carlisle sat back down and quietly said, “Before the wedding.”

Edward sat down as well, cautiously, eyes on Carlisle as if waiting for a sign of attack.

“If Bella agrees, we do this before the wedding,” Carlisle clarified, “If she’s amenable, if it goes well, then we can discuss your wedding night and honeymoon. Does that sound fair to you?”

There was a second of tense, moody, silence. To a human it would have been nothing, the blink of an eye, to a vampire it was almost an eternity.

Finally, Edward nodded, “That’s fair.”

Fair, because he thought Bella would agree to all of this. If the trial run went well, then Bella could have the honeymoon and wedding night she’d dreamed of, just with the father instead of the son.

There was no hiding Carlisle’s thoughts now.

He was emotionally exhausted in a way he hadn’t been since—

No, Edward had been emotionally exhausting him for the past two years. Every other day there was some terrible crisis, a moment of helpless waiting and wondering if it could possibly all work out, and Carlisle just had to wonder if the merry-go-round ever stopped.

The last time he’d felt like this was that night Edward, Alice, and Bella had miraculously returned from Volterra. He’d thought it was over then, that the danger was passed, and then Bella had made them put it to a vote because Edward refused to turn her.

And Carlisle had looked at him and realized that he had to betray everything Edward believed in for the safety of Bella Swan, his family, and Edward himself.

He felt tired in a way he didn’t know vampires could feel tired.

“Carlisle?” Esme asked carefully, as if he was fragile and just on the verge of shattering.

He sighed, “It’s fine, I’m just—it’s fine.”

He looked over at Edward and forced himself to say it, “Edward, you do understand what’s important in marriage, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Edward insisted, before asking with an almost relieved smile, “Is that what you’re worried about?”

He motioned to Carlisle and Esme, “I may be inexperienced, but look how many role models I have.”

That they had just finished a discussion where Esme gleefully pimped out her husband as a stud to her future daughter-in-law did not seem to occur to Edward. Truly, in this moment, he and Esme were the picture of a perfect couple.

“No, Carlisle,” Edward assured him, “It’s a little unconventional but we are a little unconventional. We’re a family of animal drinking vampires, when have we ever done normal?”

“Sex isn’t marriage,” Edward continued with confidence, “You’ve taught me that. Bella and my relationship is stronger than a little physical intimacy. I can’t do this for her personally, but I can help her have this experience, I can help her understand what’s best about being human—”

Carlisle held up a hand, forcing himself to smile as he said, “You mean well.”

That was the best he could offer.

He stood from the table once again, feeling as if fifty pounds had been added to his shoulders, “I’m glad we could discuss this so—easily. Edward, I trust you’ll let me know the time and place.”

“This weekend, of course,” Edward said, standing from the table too swiftly, too eagerly, “If we’re doing this before the wedding then we don’t have much time left. Esme and I will ensure everyone’s out hunting and you will have the house to yourself.”

“Wonderful,” Carlisle couldn’t help but say.

Would they be doing it in Carlisle and Esme’s marriage bed or in the bed Edward had so charitably purchased for Bella during the whole Victoria fiasco?

He nearly walked away before he stopped, turned, and looked at Edward, “And you will tell her beforehand, won’t you?  
  


“Yes, of course,” Edward said, grinning ear to ear, “Thank you, again, Carlisle for doing this for us. Neither of us will regret it, I promise.”

“And I won’t regret it either,” Esme said, standing from her own seat and patting Edward lovingly on the arm, looking every inch the proud mother.

Esme had always had a soft spot for Edward, their oldest and most troubled surrogate child, but Carlisle had never realized just how far Esme would go to console him before.

“I’d say it was no great trouble,” Carlisle said slowly, “But you’d know I was lying.”

Edward had the gall to laugh, Esme joined in with him, shyly giggling behind one hand. Yes, this was all something they were going to laugh about for years to come, wasn’t it? They’d look back and say to each other, “Remember that time Carlisle agreed to sleep with Edward’s wife?” And Bella and Carlisle would sheepishly look at each other, doing best not to remember a lost weekend in time, while Edward and Esme laughed just as they were doing now.

Suddenly, Carlisle wished he was human enough to drink.

“I need some fresh air,” Carlisle heard himself saying.

He didn’t wait for a response, instead he left Esme and Edward to their own devices and walked out of the kitchen then out of the house altogether. He imagined they’d spend the rest of the night discussing this, perhaps discussing exactly what Edward thought Bella was looking for or how to best arrange the house for this coming weekend.

This coming weekend, at once it felt too far away and far too soon. By this weekend this wouldn’t be theoretical anymore, Bella would know, Bella would be brought into this ridiculous scheme and made to face the fact that—

That Edward seemed content to watch her life from a distance.

He’d said as much, once, hadn’t he? That he would spend the rest of his life watching Bella Swan from the shadows. He’d watch her marry another man, have the children he couldn’t provide her, and lead an ordinary human life without him.

Carlisle had thought, when Edward said this last fall, that it’d been out of despair. Bella had nearly died due to their carelessness, due to what they were, and Edward’s own reaction had shocked him to the core.

Forcing Bella into a human life had been an act of utter desperation and despair.

Yet, here they were, and some part of Carlisle wondered if Edward would still be perfectly content to watch someone like Carlisle marry Bella in his place. As if he could live vicariously through Carlisle, appreciate Bella’s happiness from a healthy safe distance, but never get close enough to touch it himself.

Some part of that was undoubtedly his self-hatred, still so strong after all this time, but there was something very odd about it. Even if Edward was concerned about the sex, even if he wanted Bella to remain human so badly, should he be picturing her future with him inside it?

“Carlisle,” a cheerful, familiar, voice interrupted his thoughts.

Carlisle looked up to see Alice standing in the woods next to him, beaming up at him and looking for all the world like a faerie out of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“Alice,” he said with a fond smile, “I feel like I’ve barely seen you since you started planning the wedding.”

Every other day Alice seemed out of the house, buying this or that decoration, meeting with this or that caterer, and when she was in the house she was seating and reseating the wedding guests, finding the perfect venue, and putting it all together.

It was good to see her out and about though.

Good to see someone who wasn’t embroiled in this madness.

“Weddings don’t plan themselves, Carlisle,” Alice chided, “In fact, I am still very busy.”

“At this time of night?” Carlisle asked, glancing at the full moon above their heads.

“Of course,” Alice said, her bell like voice ringing like little door chimes, “Everything has to be perfect for the big day.”

Perfect, right, somehow it was going to be perfect.

“Speaking of,” Alice said, looping her arms into his and guiding him deeper into the forest, “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“Oh?” Carlisle asked.

He had no opinion on Bella’s wedding. Carlisle had long since learned to stay out of Alice’s way when it came to things like this. Hell, he’d given up on picking out his own damn clothes.

He couldn’t think of anything he could personally add. Not unless Bella had a dying need for a centuries outdated Anglican priest.

“Don’t,” Alice said, “Bella’s not very religious and if you get up and go full Carlisle Cullen, misplaced vampire priest, she’ll just about die of embarrassment.”

“Oh,” Carlisle repeated, “Alright then.”

“Not that you can’t officiate,” Alice said, “But if you do please keep the ‘thous’ and ‘our hallowed lord and savior Jesus Christs’ to a minimum.”

“No, I needed to talk to you about something else,” Alice said carefully.

She then gave Carlisle an assessing and rather knowing look, “You may not have noticed, but I’ve been pointedly absent in a few major decisions the past few weeks.”

At first, he didn’t understand what she meant, and then he came to a dead stop, staring into her ocher eyes as she stared back.

“If I talked to you too soon, before you or Esme said yes, it’d get—needlessly messy,” Alice said carefully, “But now—”

“Now all that’s left is Bella,” Carlisle finished for her and Alice nodded.

Each waited for the other to speak first.

“Carlisle,” Alice started, “I want you to listen to me very carefully and don’t interrupt until I’m finished. Remember, Carlisle, that I see many futures and that, while I am fallible, I do my best to guide us towards the best possible futures.”

She waited for Carlisle to interrupt, perhaps interject, but he didn’t. When Alice had first arrived, he hadn’t been sure how much faith to place in her visions but in time he’d learned that Alice’s counsel was unwise to ignore. Sometimes, often, she kept knowledge to herself. Sometimes she manipulated events behind the scenes, however she always did so with the best future in mind.

To ignore her advice often led to disaster.

When they’d left Forks, left Bella, in the fall at Edward’s urging they had each studiously ignored Alice’s advice. She’d told them exactly what would happen to Bella when they disappeared, told them it would only lead to suffering.

For a moment, Carlisle had almost refused to leave, but then Esme had sided with Edward and—

Well, Carlisle had been reminded that one should always give Alice her say.

And he was curious as to what she’d say about this.

“Carlisle, you need to sleep with Bella, but you can’t talk to her.”

Carlisle felt as if a pit had just opened up beneath his feet and swallowed him whole.

“What?”

Alice held up a hand, “No interrupting, remember?”

Carlisle closed his mouth, swallowing his words desperately, and pleading for Alice to continue and—and—somehow explain.

“I know that you want to talk to Bella about her and Edward,” Alice continued, “I know that you mean well, that you’re trying to do the best you can for both Edward and Bella. Don’t.”

She threw her hands out wide, “You’re just going to screw everything up, everyone will be upset, and the coven may even fall apart over it.”

“The coven will fall apart?!” Carlisle blurted.

“I can’t go into details,” Alice said, “Trust me, you don’t want me to go into details. Just understand that trying to play counselor for Bella and Edward leads to disaster.”

“Oh but sleeping with her won’t?!” Carlisle asked, throwing his arms out as well.

“No,” Alice said calmly, “It won’t. In fact, now that Edward’s steered our little ship into this rocky harbor, you have to sleep with her. If you don’t sleep with Bella, she and Edward will completely fall apart.”

“If I don’t sleep with her, they fall apart,” Carlisle parroted with a bitter, hysterical, laugh.

Alice held up her hands in defense, “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

Alice sighed, “I know it sounds—absurd, but trust me, if Edward and Bella don’t end up together—”

She cut herself off, put her hands on her hips, and looked around them as she searched for inspiration, “Bella and Edward are the golden path. If they end up together, if they can make it, everything works out. If they can’t make it, whether it’s because you put ideas into Bella’s head, because Edward kills her in the bedroom, or because Bella becomes bitter over empty promises then we’re all in big trouble.”

“Are you saying—” Carlisle cut himself off, tried to think how to put it, “Are you telling me I should lie to her?”

“No, not lie. Just, downplay it. If you pretend that it’s not a big deal then—”

“Downplay it?” Carlisle asked, “Alice, I can’t—She deserves to know. God, this girl, somebody has to make time to talk to her.”

“Carlisle—”

He started pacing, “How many times now have we left her out of the loop, pushed her to the side, or just waited for someone to talk to her for us? She’s only nineteen, Alice, nineteen and recovering from a deep depression and clear abandonment issues. Edward is using everything he can to convince her to go through with something neither of them understands nor is ready for.”

“They’ll have time later, Carlisle,” Alice interrupted, “They’ll work it out, I promise, but now isn’t the—”

“Then when is the time?” Carlisle asked, “We’ve all just been waiting for the right time, waiting for Edward to sit down and make time, and clearly we’ve missed the opportunity. I should have talked to Bella two years ago but now I have to make the most of the time we have.”

Alice was shaking her head in horror, “Don’t do it, Carlisle.”

“If I don’t do it who will?” Carlisle asked.

Alice didn’t respond, couldn’t, because he was sure that no one else would.

Esme cared too much for Edward’s happiness to intervene like this. Rosalie had tried and failed to make Bella aware of her concerns and wouldn’t bother trying now. Jasper was too skittish after Bella’s accident. Emmett too at ease with Bella’s future in the family. Alice—Alice would only do so if her visions dictated it.

Apparently, her visions dictated anything but talking to Bella.

“They’ll figure it out,” Alice said, “I promise, they either figure it out or—If you work with me, Carlisle, they can get through this.”

He stopped in his tracks and looked up at the moon. Funny, wasn’t it? The moon and the stars were exactly the same as they’d been three-hundred-fifty years ago. They’d be the same in another three-hundred-fifty years.

For all that time stood still for vampires, they changed more than the heavens did. There was immortal, and then the things that were truly immortal.

Once, Carlisle had been unbearably alone.

For many years he’d wandered without companionship. More, when he’d found culture and companionship among the Volturi, it had been with those who would never hold his beliefs.

How many times had Aro pressured him to drink human blood? He’d thought what Carlisle did was unnatural, unhealthy, that one of these days he would walk in on Carlisle’s emaciated corpse. God, surely in creating the vampire, intended for him to drink without guilt from his natural food source.

And Carlisle couldn’t begrudge the many vampires who failed to walk his path.

  
Because it wasn’t simply unpleasant, it was a test of unimaginable endurance, but of loneliness as well. Sometimes, Carlisle wondered if there wasn’t a layer in Hell named after him. If Hades hadn’t created a punishment for some misbehaving mortal, something called Carlisle, in which the man had to eat dirt for eternity while tempted by a great feast. He could eat from the feast anytime he liked with no consequence. His friends would enjoy themselves over meat and wine, beckoning him over to join them. The test would be never-ending, and the banquet would never become less tempting.

Yet, Carlisle, in three-hundred-fifty years had never chosen the easy path.

Not once had he given into not just the thirst but the aching loneliness.

Carlisle had been a part of a like-minded coven for almost one-hundred years now. He’d watched them grow and come together, tried to help guide their path, and encourage them to see the world as he did.

He had a brother, son, and companion in Edward. He had a wife in Esme. A friend and confidante in Jasper. An advisor, fond nuisance, and cheerful spot of sunlight in Alice. A baleful yet compassionate daughter in Rosalie. A playful son in Emmett. Now, soon, he would have yet another daughter.

But nothing lasted forever, not even a coven, and Carlisle could not bend in the wind.

There were some things he simply could not do.

“Carlisle,” Alice said in despair as his decision solidified and narrowed their possible futures.

“I’m sorry, Alice,” Carlisle said, “But I have to talk to her.”


	3. Setting the Stage

The weekend was one of those rare, picturesque, beautiful summer days. The sky was a bright, clear, blue with only a smattering of clouds to interrupt it. The trees seemed that much greener against the skyline and the pale mountains.

It was the perfect day for a hunt and, had things been different, Carlisle would have eagerly joined his family.

As it was Carlisle remained in the house alone. Esme, a reluctant scowling Alice, and a non-plussed Jasper had all left early this morning. Edward would be joining them shortly, delaying only to drop Bella off with Carlisle for their weekend alone.

They were late.

Edward had wanted Bella here early, by eight o’ clock, he’d said. He wanted Carlisle to have time to ease into it if need be or else to properly romance the girl. He wanted the weekend to be a full weekend for the pair of them.

However, it was already nine, something clearly had not gone according to plan.

Had Charlie Swan balked at the idea of Bella spending the night with Alice, Bella’s typical excuse for extended stays at the Cullen residence? Perhaps.

Charlie Swan had liked Edward well enough in the beginning, but after Edward had abandoned Bella in the middle of the woods and callously broken her heart in half, telling Bella that “he’d gotten bored”, he’d understandably soured on the boy. To this day, Edward was still bitter about the fact that Chief Swan had not let him back into his good graces and thought he wasn’t good enough for his daughter. Carlisle could only think that you reaped what you sowed and that he should be grateful Bella had forgiven him if not her father.

As for Alice, the chief wasn’t too keen on her either. Alice wasn’t hated with quite the same venom as Edward Cullen, who had the nerve to break Bella’s heart, summon her to Italy on a moment’s notice, and then get back together with her right under Charlie Swan’s nose, but Charlie Swan wasn’t as fond of her as he once was.

Before, from what Carlisle understood, Alice had been one of Bella’s few female friends, perhaps the closest she’d ever had. However, when Alice had refused to answer any of Bella’s many emails or phone calls for seemingly no reason—Charlie Swan now tolerated her, but he didn’t exactly like her.

Charlie likely imagined that with the wedding so close and Edward conveniently in the same house as Bella, Edward would simply use it as excuse to take advantage of her.

There was a deep, horrible, irony in that.

However, around nine-thirty Carlisle realized that this must not be the issue. Charlie had given up the fight against Edward long ago. Like it or not, Edward Cullen had won, Bella was marrying him, and if Charlie wanted to be a part of his daughter’s life he had to grin and bear it.

That meant if Bella was announcing that she was going to spend the weekend with Alice, then she was going to spend the weekend with Alice, even if both she and Charlie thought that “a weekend with Alice” translated to “sex with Edward”.

Every time Carlisle thought about it, he just wanted to melt into the floor with mortification. As much as he loved Edward, he couldn’t blame Charlie Swan, he couldn’t blame him at all.

So, if it wasn’t her father, what could be holding her up?

Perhaps it was the explanation, Carlisle thought with sudden amazement. Some part of him hadn’t thought Edward would bother explaining. Carlisle could picture all too easily Edward lying through his teeth, dropping the girl off on the doorstep, and then tearing off before Bella could get a word in and leaving Carlisle to numbly explain.

Edward being forced to explain left too much of a chance that Bella would say no.

That would explain the hour and a half delay, Carlisle thought, it’d taken him longer than that to wrap his head around the whole scheme. At this rate, Bella might not show up at all, perhaps Edward telling her would be the cue they needed to actually talk to one another.

Carlisle felt as if a weight had lifted off his shoulders.

He’d give it another hour or so, maybe call Edward to check in, and then he could head out and hunt with the others.

It was right about when he had that thought that Edward proved him wrong.

Carlisle could hear a car flying down the two-lane road at a speed only the Cullens drove at. With Rosalie out of town there was only one person who could possibly be at the wheel. Sure enough, it tore into the driveway, screeched to a halt just before crashing into the garage.

The car doors opened, there was the sound of footsteps, and the excited beating of a human heart. When the door to the house opened a gentle breeze from outside wafted in. The air suddenly smelled of freesias and lilacs, nervous human excitement and the slightest hint of anticipatory arousal.

She’d just showered, Carlisle thought, he could smell the shampoo in her hair. However, it wasn’t just that, she’d blow dried it as well and though it was hard to detect from the kitchen, he swore he caught a whiff of mascara, lipstick, and blush.

The hour and a half, apparently, had been spent with Bella giving herself a makeover.

… That probably meant that she and Edward hadn’t spent any of it talking.

Carlisle put his head into his hands, forcing himself to wait in agonized anticipation, while Edward and Bella walked towards him.

“Should I put my bag upstairs?” Bella asked, her voice shaking ever so slightly with that barely contained nervousness.

“I can do it,” Edward said, far more self-assured sounding than her, as he took the bag from her.

No need for nervousness from him, his role was almost over.

“You shouldn’t have to carry my crap all the time just because you’re superman,” Bella chided, her voice teasing, “I feel bad making you carry everything, carry me, everywhere.”

“Ah, but Bella, what else is my superhuman strength good for?” Edward asked, and you could hear the cocky grin in his words.

“I don’t know,” Bella responded, “Stopping vans?”

An intake of breath as Edward, so softly Carlisle could barely hear it, brushed his lips against her cheek, “I’ll take it upstairs, Bella.”

With that he rushed upstairs, dropped the bag in her bedroom, and rushed back down. To Bella it’d seem like nothing more than a sudden gust of wind. She giggled when he arrived back downstairs, sounding charmed, and asked, “So, what do we do now?”

And here, finally, Edward paused, “Bella, there’s—there’s something we need to talk about.”

Carlisle looked up from his hands in horror. Oh no, Edward really hadn’t told her anything.

“Don’t tell me you’re backing out now,” Bella said, her tone switching to one of anger, exasperated frustration, and just a hint of despair, “We’ve been over this a billion times. You sucked venom out of my wrist for god’s sake, you can do this! I know you can do this!”

“I can’t do this! Trust me, I know what my limits are, and I can’t—”

“We don’t even kiss!” Bella shouted, “You peck me on the cheek sometimes or let me kiss your closed lips! The most we ever do is cuddle and sometimes hold fucking hands in public. You’ve gone to high school forever, Edward, I am not more fragile than your number two pencil!”

“You’re not asking me to do something you would do with a pencil—”

“Yeah, I’m not, because that pencil gets more action than I do,” Bella retorted.

They fell silent, Bella’s clothing rustling as she crossed her arms. Carlisle could imagine, as she let out a sigh, her looking at the wall, “Edward, why did you invite me over here for a weekend? Victoria’s ashes and you know the pack won’t hurt me, so what is it this time?”

“I—” Edward cut himself off, audibly swallowed, and then said, “I think we should talk in the kitchen.”

Carlisle let out an unsteady breath, that was his cue, he supposed.

Unfortunately, it seemed Bella wasn’t willing to play along with Edward, “I think we can talk right here. Because, I’m warning you, Edward, if I don’t like your answer I am grabbing my bag and walking out that door even if it means I have to walk all the way back home.”

“Bella, don’t be absurd, it’s a two-lane road that barely has a shoulder, you can’t—”

“I mean it, Edward,” she insisted.

Edward paused for a moment and then decided to throw caution to the wind, “Bella, I agree that sex is a vital human experience and something you should know before you turn.”

“Great,” Bella responded dryly, “Glad we cleared that one up.”

“It’s a vital experience that I can’t provide you,” Edward continued, “I—I know I make it seem easy, but it’s not. The slightest bit of carelessness on my part could leave you with a devastating injury. Sexual intercourse is not an activity known for its restraint. I could crush you, Bella, in an instant. There would be nothing left of you, just mash of broken bones, torn skin, and blood leaking out of you.”

“All it would take,” Edward concluded, “Is one single mistake. Just one, and you’d be gone, and I would still be here.”

“Edward,” Bella said softly, “Isn’t that how we live already? You’re so tempted by my blood, you’ve told me so. Even just sitting next to me in Biology could be enough. But where would we be if you weren’t willing to try? There are things, Edward, that are worth risks.”

“I shouldn’t have tried,” Edward said in growing despair, “I should have stayed away, then you could have had—”

“Enough about what I could have had!” Bella said, “I don’t want that, I never wanted that, what I want is you. I’m joining your family, Edward, and I’ll become just like you! We won’t have to worry about my blood or about sex or about anything anymore. We’ll be perfect.”

“Vampirism will not make you perfect!” Edward hissed, “You are willingly turning yourself into a monster and—”

“You agreed to turn me! You agreed—”

“You could try to be a little less eager about it!”

“And what, be eager to slowly grow older while you stay the same, to end up your creepy cougar wife?”

“No, Bella, it wouldn’t be like that—”

“How would it not be like that?” Bella asked, “You’d be off in high school and I’d be Stacy’s Mom having it all going on. Living the dream with Esme, unable to even hold hands with you in public before someone calls Charlie for statutory rape.”

“Bella, you’re not thinking about this clearly—”

“All I know is that you don’t seem to want me!” Bella shouted back.

Both of them seemed to be stunned into silence by that. As if Bella had just said something she wasn’t supposed to say.

With the pause in conversation, Carlisle was beginning to feel like a voyeur. Edward knew he was here, but he was sure Bella had no idea. This wasn’t a conversation he should be present for.

Carlisle eyed the backdoor, wondering if he could take the time to exit, if Edward would even let him.

Before he could move Bella was speaking again, “Edward, if I stay human, I’ll die. Someday, I’ll die, and I’ll just be this brief moment in your life. Don’t you—I thought you said you wanted me to stay forever.”

“I do,” Edward assured her, “Bella, I do, but—I would give anything to hold onto what we have now. You would stay as you are, human, your soul whole, but that doesn’t mean I want you to become like me. Our lives are hard and lonely, you know this, and I’m touched that you’ve chosen to embrace life with me anyway. I’ll turn you because I promised, because I have no choice, but I want a better life for you than this.”

Bella said nothing but from her sniffling Carlisle could tell she was crying.

“I promise, we’ll still be together after you turn, I will never leave unless you tell me to. But this wasn’t why I brought you here.”

Bella laughed through her tears, “Yeah, I guess we got a little off track, huh?”

“Just a little,” Edward agreed.

“God,” Bella said, “My mascara must be a mess. I never should have tried; I probably look like a clown.”

“It was an admirable attempt,” Edward consoled her.

“Goddammit, I really do look like a clown!” Bella cried out in despair, her voice muffled, as Edward undoubtedly handed her a tissue to dab the tears and ruined makeup away from her eyes.

There was a long pause as Bella tried to correct her makeup. Too long of a pause, as Edward was undoubtedly gearing up to one thing.

  
Carlisle stiffened again, here it came, his cue.

“I’ve thought about sex and—and I believe I have a compromise,” Edward finished with growing confidence.

  
“A compromise?” Bella laughed, “Does that mean what I think it means?”

Carlisle was sure that Bella was imagining the intimate contact and foreplay that often led to sexual intercourse. In which case, no, no it did not mean what Bella thought it meant.

“Perhaps,” Edward said coyly.

Carlisle nearly hit his head on the counter.

No, Edward, no, Carlisle found himself thinking in despair. You know what Bella’s thinking, you know exactly what she’s thinking, and you can’t build her up and then drop what you really mean on her.

Either Edward didn’t hear him or chose to ignore him, “Come with me to the kitchen, Bella, and I’ll explain everything.”

“The kitchen, eh?” Bella asked with growing, sly, mirth, “Is this going to involve chocolate sauce and whipped cream?”

Carlisle was choking on his own despair.

Edward paused after only taking a step towards the kitchen, “I suppose it could.”

  
Edward!

“You were right,” Bella said as she started walking to the kitchen, “I don’t expect you to do anything like that with your number two pencil.”

“I should hope not,” Edward said, a shudder of disgust running through his voice, “Not to mention chocolate for me is not the same as chocolate for you.”

“Hey, that just means more chocolate for Bella,” Bella said.

And then, finally, the walked into the kitchen.

Carlisle lifted his head and tried to offer the pair a smile and a wave.

Bella, did indeed, look something like a clown. More accurately, she’d overdone it with the blush, mascara, and deep red lipstick and looked more like one of the women you’d see selling herself on a street corner.

To Carlisle’s knowledge, Bella had never done her own makeup before, and it showed.

Edward smiled at the sight of Carlisle, Bella, however, gaped at him in shock.

She lifted her hand numbly to wave, “Hello Dr. Cullen.”

Carlisle felt his smile become even more strained, couldn’t help his eyes wandering to Edward, who tried not to look surprised by Bella’s greeting. Oh god, was Edward going to try and get her to sleep with a man she called ‘Dr. Cullen’?

“Edward,” Bella said quietly through her smile, likely hoping she was quiet enough Carlisle wouldn’t overhear, “What is this?”

“The compromise,” Edward said, motioning to Carlisle in all his glory.

Carlisle really felt he was missing that birthday cake entrance.

“I don’t get it,” Bella responded, giving up on the pretense of being quiet as she looked between Carlisle and Edward and back again.

  
“Bella, I can’t sleep with you,” Edward assured her, taking her hand carefully in his, “But there’s someone with even better control than I have, someone who will treat you—”

“No,” Bella said in horror, repeating, “Oh my god, no.”

“Bella, please listen—”

“Nope.”

“Bella, you told me this was the one experience you wanted to have human! You didn’t care about high school, college, marriage, or anything else except this one thing—”

“No.”

“I thought about this a long time—”

“No.”

“I even talked to Alice, and she said the chances with me were—they’re not good, Bella, in fact they’re so terrible your survival would be practically a miracle. With Carlisle though—”

“Edward—”

“—The chances are much better, in fact, he likely won’t even bruise you. Carlisle can give you what I can’t, and I don’t trust anyone more.”

Bella seemed to be out of words, instead, she looked over at Carlisle in dull horror. Carlisle was sure he was mirroring her expression. This was so much worse than he could have ever imagined.

“Both Carlisle and Esme agreed to it,” Edward piped in with a smile, “They even agreed to our wedding night and honeymoon if all goes well.”

Bella kept her eyes on Carlisle and simply asked, “Did you agree to this?”

Carlisle rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, desperately looked out the window, and murmured, “Yes.”

Even though what he meant, of course, was “Unfortunately.”

Edward glared across at him, undoubtedly having caught that last thought, but pushed a numb Bella over towards Carlisle. He sat her down in the seat next to him at the counter and backed away slowly, hands held in front of him as if framing a picture.

Bella said nothing, just kept staring straight ahead, looking far beyond Edward and the rest of the kitchen.

“There, you’ll enjoy this, Bella, I promise,” Edward said gleefully, “Carlisle can give you everything I can’t while you’re still human.”

He started walking away, backing out of the kitchen so he could keep his eyes on her as he went. When he was just at the doorway, he stopped and asked, “You do know I love you, don’t you?”  
  


Bella said nothing.

Firmly, Edward said, “Bella, I love you.”

Then he was gone. In only a second, the car was tearing out of the driveway again, leaving Bella and Carlisle behind while Edward drove off to join the rest of the family for two days.

When it was clear he was gone, that he wasn’t coming back, Carlisle turned to look at Bella.

Quietly, he offered her a towel for her face and makeup, and asked, “Would you like some water to drink?”

Bella numbly took the towel but didn’t move it to her face, made no move to stand and go to the bathroom. Instead, still staring ahead into the kitchen and not at Carlisle, she said, “Edward doesn’t love me.”


	4. A Conversation

For a moment, Carlisle could only stare at her, and then he quickly moved to console her, “No, Bella, no, he’s just worried about—”

“No, he doesn’t love me,” Bella said with firm unshakeable confidence, “I always knew it.”

She stood from the chair and moved to the sink, put the towel under the faucet, and slowly began to wipe the makeup from her face, “I always thought it never made sense. Someone like him with someone like me? I’m nothing special; average hair, average height, average eye color. The only thing that isn’t average is that I can’t get a tan and my brain runs on AM instead of FM.”

She sighed, her face raw and red from rubbing away the blush and lipstick, “But he said it like he meant it, he said it so often I started to believe it—”

“He does mean it,” Carlisle insisted, “I know his choice is a little unorthodox, perhaps a little unethical, but never doubt that he loves you.”

She stood at the sink, still staring out the window, and said quietly, “You know, he was offended when he left after my birthday. He said he was offended that I believed him so easily when he said he’d gotten bored. He thought it would take hours, that it’d take all night to convince me, and then—It took a sentence, because a sentence was all I needed!”

She gripped the counter, leaning forward as she tried to stifle her tears, “I asked him why he loved me, you know. Later, I told him, list out what you love about me so much, because I just don’t see it. You know what he said? He told me it’s because I smell good, can’t walk in a straight line, and that I’m a fucking disaster magnet.”

“He said that?” Carlisle asked in dull, growing, horror.

Bella shook her head, laughing, “Not exactly, he said it prettier, but yeah that was pretty much it. I smell good, I have a human heartbeat, and I love him even though he could kill me at any moment. I’m the girl who loves monsters, I’m the beautiful lamb to his hungry lion.”

She finally turned back to Carlisle, smiling through her tears, “And you know, at the time, I thought that was a great metaphor. Most guys would probably talk about how our love is a red rose, or something you could read out of any old book, Edward tells me I’m a fluffy lamb. It’s original, at least, and it isn’t wrong. There probably is something wrong with me, to be in love with something that could so easily kill me, but I—”

“Bella,” Carlisle said slowly, and motioned to the seat next to him, “Bella come here.”

Bella slowly shuffled back to her seat. Carlisle reached out to take her hand in his only to withdraw it when Bella winced at the coldness, “Bella, I have known Edward for one hundred years, and trust me when I say you have changed him for the better. He might not know how to express it, might not know what to do, but he does love you. I know he loves you.”

Granted, he could have expressed it better than telling her how edible she was. Carlisle wished Edward had said something about that, not necessarily to Carlisle, but to someone who could tell him that that wasn’t the kind of answer a girl wanted.

As it was, Carlisle couldn’t help but wonder if that had been Edward’s sad attempt at dirty talk. He couldn’t see Edward as the type, but Bella had thrown him for a desperate loop, and why else would he ever compare her to a lamb or talk about how delicious she smelled?

Bella just looked at him and weakly smiled, clearly not believing a word he said, “You’re sweet, Dr. Cullen, why are you really here?”

“Pardon?” Carlisle asked.

“You’re not here to have sex with me, are you?” Bella asked.

“Well—” Carlisle paused, tried to search for the words, “No, actually, I was hoping you and I could talk.”

Bella nodded slowly, “You didn’t seem like the type. I take it Esme’s in on this?”

Carlisle opened his mouth, closed it, and forced himself to look away, “Actually, no, Esme full expects that you and I—”

Bella didn’t even let him finish the sentence, “She what?!”

Carlisle sighed, unfortunately, he was still right there with Bella. It seemed absurd to him that he should find himself in this situation to begin with, yet here they were.

“You must understand,” he said slowly, “Esme loves our children, and she—”

She loved Edward more than the others. Carlisle didn’t want to say as much but it was the truth and he was sure all of them knew it. Edward had been there the longest, had desperately needed parental figures when Carlisle had turned Esme, and had always remained their most troubled yet precocious child.

The others, they called them children, but that was a term used for convenience.

Jasper was a grown adult who had seen horrors that could not be unseen, who had lived a life of pain and suffering, buried in hell on Earth for decades. Jasper needed a friend, an advisor, a path beyond the bloodshed of his youth, and hope for the future. Jasper went along with the high school scheme because it was necessary, but Carlisle knew he found the entire thing insulting and absurd.

Alice toyed with the idea of acting like a daughter but was far too much her own person to truly take on the role. She played at it when it suited her but more often acted as the family’s knowledgeable advisor, guiding their path to the future. That and daughters normally didn’t pick out wardrobes for their parents.

Emmett thought treating Carlisle and Esme like his parents was the world’s greatest, and funniest, joke that he’d never let any of the live down.

Rosalie was the closest, in a way. Things between her and Carlisle had always been tense, but she did have great respect for him. She recognized that a part of her was wishing for a life she couldn’t have lived, that if Carlisle hadn’t turned her, she would have simply died. However, it was easier to blame Carlisle than it was to blame God and she had not asked to become a vampire. With Esme, things were more clear cut, Rosalie had always been very fond of Esme.

However, Rosalie often looked to Esme as a fellow woman who had endured unspeakable things at the hands of human men. Rosalie did not treat her like a mother.

The point was, they didn’t need parents, they needed friends, a coven leader, advisors but not parents. Not the way Edward did.

For that reason, and a few others, Edward was Esme’s favorite.

Carlisle didn’t say that though, instead he explained, “Esme has watched Edward endure decades of desperate unhappiness. She watched him leave, killing humans to try and find himself, and come back more despondent than ever. She is very grateful to you and so happy for him—there is very little Edward could propose to her that she would not do for the sake of his happiness.”

Bella just looked at him for a moment and he wondered what she saw in him. Often, she seemed to look over him, to clearly have categorized him as Edward’s father and moved on with her life. Now though, her deep brown eyes assessed him as if she were seeing him for the first time.

Finally, she said, “If it were the other way around would you have let Esme do it?”

In other words, what would Carlisle have been willing to do for Edward?

It felt damning to say, “No, no, I would have tried to suggest something else.”

Even if Esme had been as supportive as she’d been when Edward asked her permission for Carlisle to bed Bella. Even if she’d tried to coax him into it—he couldn’t picture himself saying yes.

Not even for the sake of Edward’s happiness.

He sighed, stared ahead, and tried to get the conversation back where it started, “But he does love you, Bella, he’s just—he’s young.”

“He’s a hundred years young,” Bella snorted, even rolling her eyes a bit, a small smile working its way onto her otherwise grim features.

“He’s seventeen,” Carlisle corrected, “That he’s been seventeen for a century doesn’t mean he’s not seventeen.”

Bella sighed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with Carlisle, but then he wondered if she understood what he meant. Bella was more or less the same age as Edward himself. Like Edward, she was very mature in some respects but acted her age in others.

What would it mean, to her, that someone was seventeen? Bella was still a teenager herself, had had so little time to look back and reflect on how she’d changed. Perhaps, Carlisle saying that would mean very little to her.

Regardless, after a pause, she mused with a thoughtful frown, “You know, I think that’s it, I think Edward thinks that he loves me.”

Carlisle felt his eyebrows raise but she didn’t give him a chance to ask.

“I’m serious,” Bella said, “I mean, especially since—since Italy, he tells me he loves me almost every day. But he—I think he just thinks that he does.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow,” Carlisle said.

“Hear me out,” Bella said, lifting a hand to ward off his comments, “Edward—I think, sometimes, he forgets—I don’t really know how to put it. It’s not that he forgets I’m here, forgets I have opinions or anything, but he forgets something. Maybe he forgets that he’s a part of my life too.”

She motioned around her, “You know what he told me when he—when he left? He said it’d be like he’d never existed. He took all the photos, all the gifts from my birthday—”

“He did what?” Carlisle couldn’t help but blurt.

“Everything except the stereo in the truck,” Bella nodded, as if this were nothing unusual, “I think either Rosalie installed it or something and he didn’t think he could get it out. Funny story, I actually ended up clawing that thing out with my bare hands.”

How was this a funny story, Carlisle desperately wanted to ask.

“I just looked at it, right after you guys left, and there was this white noise in my head. I tore the thing out, screaming my head off for thirty minutes. I practically ruined my hands,” Bella said with a cheerful laugh, “Oh my god, they were such a mess afterwards, there was blood everywhere. Now its sad mangled corpse lives in my closet. Everything else he stuck under my floorboards.”

He put what under her floorboards?

She continued before Carlisle had a chance to say anything, “Anyway, the point is, I think he thought that was all I needed. Maybe he thought it’d take a few months, or something, but if he just took away a few reminders of his existence then I’d forget about him. Like I wouldn’t go to school every day looking for him and Alice, or I wouldn’t see your empty house, or I—”

“He told me he thought it’d take all night to convince me and yet he thought I could forget about him because he happened to steal a couple of photos,” Bella said, tears gathering at the corner of her eyes again as she shook her head.

“He doesn’t—” she threw her hands in the air, “He always does this! It’s like I’m just there sometimes! I’m just—I’m just there and he’s just there and he can just shove you or Jake at me and I wouldn’t even notice!”

She laughed and looked down at her lap, “You see, I think—I think he just likes, loves, the idea of me. The real me, average, boring, Bella who can’t just forget about him or sleep with anybody else—she’s not even on his radar.”

For a moment Carlisle said nothing, he felt as if there was nothing he could say. He couldn’t say he imagined what this conversation would be like but this, whatever this was, was not it.

He had known that Bella and Edward’s relationship was a work in progress, that, like all relationships it had flaws. However, he hadn’t realized exactly how deep those flaws were and that Edward’s latest actions were just a culmination of something far more dangerous than a lack of communication.

The way she talked, the things she recounted, it was as if they hadn’t had a relationship since Edward had returned from Italy, if not before he left.

Finally, he noted, “It sounds like you’ve been thinking about this for some time.”

She shrugged, “Not really, I mean—it hurt so much when he, when you, left that sometimes it feels like I’m just grabbing on with both hands for dear life.”

She pantomimed holding a bull by the horns, “It, god, it felt like he ripped my heart out of my chest that day. When he came back, when I saw him in Italy, I never wanted to feel like that again. I promised I would never feel like that again, that this time, this time I would do whatever I had to—”

She sighed and cut herself off, let her hands drop onto the counter where she poked at the placemat, “You know, it doesn’t hurt as much as I expected.”

She glanced at him, “I mean, it hurts, obviously, but it’s not the same. Maybe it’s because it’s less of a shock this time. I think last time I actually let myself believe he loved me, because some part of me wanted him to so desperately. This special, perfect, boy who wasn’t even human loved someone like me. It was—it was the greatest feeling in the world. This time, well, this time I saw it coming.”

“Bella, he wants to marry you—” Carlisle started but Bella laughed before he could even finish.

“Marriage,” Bella scoffed, “No offense, Dr. Cullen, but I’ve seen marriage.”

“Marriage,” she said with a cynicism he’d never seen in her before, “Is overrated and for people who rush in too young, too fast, and end up hating each other. Marriage isn’t forever, sometimes you’re lucky if marriage is even a year. Marriage is a piece of paper and a nice party.”

She held up a hand and began ticking off fingers, “Immortality, sex with someone you love, now those mean something, those last. Funny, isn’t it? Edward wanted a flimsy piece of paper so badly, but he can’t put his money where his mouth is. Edward wants forever, but only if forever is six months of cuddling.”

“That’s not true. That’s not how he sees it, Bella,” Carlisle corrected quietly, “Marriage is important to Edward. Marriage is a vow that will outlast everything—”

  
“Edward wants to marry a girl who doesn’t exist,” Bella cut in, just looking at him, eyes still watering but face calm and stoic despite her red blotchy cheeks.

Carlisle had nothing to say.

He sighed, looked up at the ceiling, and wondered how it had come to this. What counsel could he possibly give for both her and Edward?

Edward—Edward would be devastated if he knew what she said. He’d be horrified to know that some part of Carlisle couldn’t help but agree.

“Originally,” Carlisle found himself saying quietly, “When Edward came to me about this, after we talked, I was going to suggest you and Edward postpone the wedding a few years until after you were turned. Take time to get to know each other, let you have time to adjust, and then—”

He didn’t finish the sentence, there didn’t seem to be a point.

He and Bella instead sat in silence, letting the minutes tick by as they each became lost in memories. Carlisle found himself going over the past two years, the way Edward had suddenly brightened, that day he’d first brought the shy girl to visit their house, Carlisle’s conversation with Bella when giving her stitches—

Then Bella asked, “What happens if I don’t marry Edward?”

“What do you mean?” Carlisle asked.

“I—” she stopped, swallowed harshly, “In Italy, the Volturi said that I had to be a vampire. Edward won’t change me if I don’t marry him.”

Her meaning, of course, was clear. If she didn’t marry Edward, would she be changed? Would she be signing her death certificate?

“I’ll change you,” Carlisle responded swiftly, leaving no room for doubt. She nodded slowly as she took that in, as if she was resigning herself to that fate.

“I—I know it’s not supposed to make a difference, I know it’s supposed to be three days of agony, but I just wanted it to be him so badly,” she confessed, “I wanted him to choose me, not just watch you do it or grumble about it in some other room, but actively choose me forever. I thought—if he does that, then maybe he really does want me. Maybe he won’t leave. Maybe he thought that too, maybe that’s why he’s not volunteering.”

Carlisle shook his head, “No, he—Edward has phenomenal control, especially since he met you, but he doesn’t want to risk it. Edward has never turned anyone before, and it is not an easy thing to do.”

Carlisle, after all, had only ever attempted it himself after nearly three-hundred years and even he wouldn’t say it was easy.

“That’s the trouble,” Bella said, “He never wants to risk anything. He wants to play it safe. He wants—maybe it’s not playing house but it’s playing something. Life is worth taking risks.”

She sighed again and then asked a more damning question, “What if Edward and I don’t stay together?”

Oh, oh Edward.

He wanted so badly to tell her to talk to him, to try. Carlisle would talk to him; Carlisle would do everything in his power to help them through this. He could feel everything Edward had worked for, the only true happiness he seemed to have known in one hundred years, crumbling between his fingers.

Some part of it had to be miscommunication and youth. Edward and Bella had had so little time and spent so much of it in a desperate fight for survival. Edward had never been in love before, neither had Bella, and both stumbled as all young love did.

But another part of Carlisle listened to every word Bella said, looked at the certainty in her eyes, and remembered Edward approaching him for the idea that had brought Carlisle and Bella here today. Edward had been so earnest, so confident, and made it sound so logical that it had almost seemed reasonable. Yet, beneath that, there was an utter disregard for and lack of understanding of what a relationship truly was.

More, there was an utter disregard for Bella’s opinion.

Edward had no idea what he’d done in asking this of Carlisle and his future bride. Carlisle was sure he had never imagined Bella leaving him over this as a possibility. No, Edward was too busy planning Carlisle and Bella’s honeymoon.

Bella leaving could destroy him.

Yet, Carlisle couldn’t tell Bella to stay just because he wanted Edward to be happy.

His voice caught in his throat and Carlisle forced himself to say, “I’ll still turn you and you’ll still be a Cullen. You will always, Bella, be a Cullen.”

She looked up at him, tears flowing down her face again, and he realized with some horror she had expected the answer to be no.

But then, why shouldn’t she? They’d all left at Edward’s command once before. From her point of view, it seemed simple that if Edward left her then his entire world left with him. Being with Edward wasn’t simply being with Edward, it was choosing life itself over a cruel and pointless death at the hands of the Volturi.

Suddenly, Carlisle wished he had talked to her so much sooner. Today seemed far too late, even the night of her birthday party seemed far too late. Somehow, he should have found time at the beginning to assure her that her importance to him and his family did not revolve around her importance to Edward.

Even though, back then, she had only been the strange curiosity that was Edward’s human girlfriend.

“Remember, Bella, that most came to this coven without mates,” he reminded her, “I didn’t turn Esme with the intention of marrying her. Rosalie took years to find Emmett. Edward has taken one hundred years to find—Only Jasper and Alice came together. Your coming into this family alone is not a remarkable event, no matter the strange circumstances.”

She nodded, still crying, but a grateful, relieved, smile was also on her face.

God, she had thought about this. How long had Bella wondered about this? Had she agreed to marry Edward solely because of the unspoken consequences? Not just dangled rewards of sex and immortality but believing that Edward held her entire world in the palm of his hand?

Still, Carlisle couldn’t help but ask, “Bella, will you—are you going to leave him?”

She shook her head, “No, I mean, I don’t know—I don’t think I can. Maybe when I’m a vampire, when I’m—when I’m not useless and human and look like Rosalie, he’ll love me.”

“Being human is not useless—” he tried to say but she didn’t wait for him to finish.

Instead, with a small smile, she said, “You know, I think it’s okay that I love him more than he loves me.”

She laughed a little, looking almost at peace, “Yeah, it’s like it’s good to finally know where I stand.”

Carlisle felt as if his heart was breaking.

“You shouldn’t have to live like that,” Carlisle said.

“Funny, shouldn’t you be all Team Edward?” Bella asked.

He sighed, laced his hands together, and said, “I think you and Edward should talk. I think you should have a long, in depth talk, and call of the wedding. I think neither of you see each other or yourselves clearly. You are worth far more than you give yourself credit for. Edward is—I believe he is not as callous as you make him out to be.”

“I never said he was callous,” Bella said shaking her head in confusion, “I get it, the Bella he’s made up in his head is way cooler than the Bella in real life.”

“Bella—” Carlisle tried to say but she didn’t let him finish.

Instead she took a breath, and said, “No, on second thought, I have to leave him.”

She let out a long, painful sigh and let her head drop into her hands, “Edward deserves someone he loves, someone he actually really loves, not just an idea of them. I don’t know who that is, I don’t know if it’s Tanya or somebody else, but I don’t think it’s me.”

“And what about you?” Carlisle couldn’t help but ask.

  
“What about me?” she retorted.

“Don’t you deserve to be loved?” Carlisle asked.

“Maybe,” Bella said, “I don’t know, maybe someday. Maybe what I have—had—with Edward was it for me. Just the idea of being loved like that—I think most people aren’t loved like that, love others like that, their whole lives.”

“You forget forever is a long time,” Carlisle said, “You’ll have time to find someone. I know you will.”

“Yeah,” Bella said weakly, “I guess that’ll be me then, huh? Three-hundred years or more until I find someone who really has a thing for average.”

“You’re not average,” Carlisle said.

“When I’m not average, I’m fucking weird,” Bella said with a snort, “Seriously, what kind of a person has brown for a favorite color?”

Now that did throw Carlisle a little for a loop, “Brown is your favorite color?”

She nodded and explained, “Brown’s underrated. There are all different kinds of brown, it’s not just dirt. When you’re from the desert, you look out and see layers and layers of brown and it’s—it’s warm. When I first came here, everything was too green, way too vibrant. It’s started to grow on me though.”

She fell into a thoughtful silence which was enough time for Carlisle to gather his thoughts. He felt as if he had to say something, find some way to reassure her that she was worth loving, that she wasn’t forgettable or obnoxious or some kind of charity case Edward had taken on out of misconceived notions of love.

How could you say that in only a few words?

  
Even with an entire weekend before them, how could he find what he needed to say to her when he hadn’t found what he needed to say to Edward in a hundred years?

In the end, he decided, that the only thing for it was to just start talking.

“Bella, I want to say something to you, and I want you to listen until I’m finished,” he began.

She looked over at him with those wide doe’s eyes. They were a little too large her face and Carlisle suspected they always would be, it gave her a strange, childish, and almost innocent look about her. Yet perhaps because they were so large, they always expressed so much.

Her face was an open book, but her eyes were the windows to her soul thrown wide open.

“Bella, you are an extraordinary human being and not simply because you captured Edward’s interest,” Carlisle said, and he could see her wanting to roll her eyes, to turn away from him and hide herself beneath a shield of sarcasm and disbelief, “It doesn’t matter that your favorite color is brown, that you’ve visited the hospital more times than any healthy young woman I’ve ever heard of, or that you have brown hair, brown eyes, and an average height. Those are the surface details of any given person, things we spout in icebreaker activities when it feels too hard to reveal our true selves.”

He motioned to himself and began an introduction, “My name is Carlisle Cullen, I’m twenty-three going on three-hundred-fifty. I’m tall enough to be gangly, have that color of hair that you can’t help but wonder is thanks to peroxide, and an eye color that alternates between looking like a lizard’s and that unnerving pitch black you see in horror films. At their best, they’re almost brown. My favorite color is blue. I used to be a pastor and was a terrible disappointment to my father.”

“You’re not—” Bella started but Carlisle held up a hand.

“I won’t claim to know you well,” Carlisle continued, “In fact, I have come to regret that fact and not simply because you and Edward are—were—getting married. However, would you like me to tell you what I know about you?”

Bella looked horrified; a deer trapped in the headlights with a semi barreling forward at full speed. Her cheeks weren’t simply red from wiping away makeup now but scarlet with sheer embarrassment.

Carlisle couldn’t help but grin as he continued, “I know you are courageous. You are courageous in the way that only heroes in epic poetry and ballads are courageous.

You knowingly confronted and offered your heart to what the world sees as a monster. You confronted James on your own, faced death with your head held high, and when he tortured you and asked you to plead for your life, your only words were for Edward. You faced the threat of Victoria and Laurent on your own while climbing your way out of heartbreak, the world you knew having abandoned you, and made friends with yet another inhuman society who had no intentions of being friends with you.”

“It wasn’t like that—” Bella tried to say but he just shook his head.

“When Alice came back out of nowhere, after months without contact, you embraced her with open arms and rushed on a moment’s notice to Edward’s aid, risking your life in a city of vampires that would kill you for what you know, even though you whole-heartedly believed he had abandoned you. You had the courage, Bella, to take Edward back and try again, even after the many grievous mistakes he made.”

He reached out and took her hands in his, and this time she didn’t flinch, “Bella, if that’s not courage, I don’t know what is.”

She squeezed his hands, looked down at the counter, and tried to mumble, “It wasn’t like that, of course I—”

“I’m not finished,” Carlisle interjected.

“I know you love often and with everything you have,” Carlisle said, “You love people who shun you, despise you, and disparage you even to this day. You have never shrunk from Jasper for all that he has avoided you, for having lost control and nearly killed you, or become contemptuous of Rosalie for all that she is contemptuous of you. You forgave us all for leaving and then coming back as if we still had a place in your life.”

“Isn’t that a bad thing?” Bella asked quietly, “Doesn’t that make me stupid?”

“You’re not without flaws,” Carlisle agreed with a nod, “You’re young, naïve, and sometimes very foolish. Edward told me you tried to stab yourself in the battle with Victoria because you heard it in an old Quileute legend. You ran off to confront James without stopping to think that, even if he had your mother, he simply would kill the pair of you if you went to save her. I’m sure I haven’t been witness to even half the hare-brained schemes you’ve come up with in your desperation to find a happy ending in this madness.”

Bella flushed in shame and shifted in her seat.

“Sometimes, you fail to consider the circumstances and lives of others,” he continued, “Rosalie dislikes you in part out of jealousy of the human life you still have to live but also because you completely disregarded her advice. She sees you throwing everything away, a life you’ve barely begun to live, because you think you understand what our lives are like and have failed to seriously consider what you’re going to lose.”

He held up a hand before she could say anything, “We all, Bella, have character flaws. We have flaws and we have strengths. Whatever yours are, know that you are extraordinary, and you are not just worthy of love but deserving of it. Someday, and it may not be Edward, someone will see you for who you are, warts and all, and they will love you.”

She was crying again, crying and biting her wobbling lip, whether to hide a smile or a sob he didn’t know.

“I can’t promise it will be tomorrow,” he finished, “I can’t promise it will be Edward, but know that love will come.”

Finally, he made to withdraw his hands from hers, but she stopped him, “Wait.”

She took a deep, steadying, breath and said the words that would damn them both, “I want to do it.”

  
“What?” he asked, honestly having no idea what she was talking about.

“You waited three-hundred years for Esme,” Bella said, tightening her grip on his hands, “Edward waited—he’s going to wait even longer than a hundred years now. Dr. Cullen—Carlisle—I want to be loved, even if it’s just once, before I start waiting.”

He felt his stomach drop in quiet horror, “Bella—”

“Esme gave you permission,” she listed off, “Edward gave us both permission, and this is the only chance I’ll ever have. I know you don’t love me, at least, not like that, but I—I want to be loved even if it’s only once in my life.”

She finally looked up at him, looked directly into her eyes, and said a single word, “Please.”

It was that one word, he’d later thought, that one word and the way she looked at him with her soul wide open that did it.

At the time it was as if his body moved on its own.

His smile softened into something gentle, he squeezed her hands back as softly as he could, and he said, “You’ll have to call me Carlisle.”


	5. The Act

There were many things Carlisle missed about being human.

He missed food, oh god did he miss the taste of food. He missed the feeling of contentment after a meal, the very fact that he could become full and satisfied if only for a few hours. He missed being able to walk freely in the sunlight, to not have to live a life of pretense.

Over the years it’d grown from an open wound into a sort of distant, dull, ache. There was so much he could do as a vampire that he could not as a man. Work hours meant nothing to him anymore, he could detect illnesses that he never would have been able to as a human, he could retain and learn so much more than he ever could as a human, he had met so many fascinating people from all times and places in the world.

He was free to choose the direction of his life a way he hadn’t as the son of a priest.

Until today, he had not missed drinking.

It was now midafternoon. Bella was sitting across from him on the deck, wrapped in a towel and nothing else, watching him with wide nervous eyes. Carlisle was sitting naked in the hot tub the Cullens had rarely used.

And he was stone cold sober.

“So, you ever do this with Esme?” Bella finally asked.

“No,” he looked down at the swirling water that barely obscured his form with a sigh, “Sadly, it hasn’t gotten much use.”

Vampires minded the cold better than humans, the heat too for that matter. As a result, things like a hot tub lost their excitement. Vampires didn’t suffer the same aching muscles and buildup of lactic acid as humans, there was no relief of tension stepping into scalding water. Hot tubs were just tubs of unpleasantly warm water.

That said, three years ago when they’d first moved back to Forks and were remodeling, Emmett insisted on installing one. He’d had such dreams for this hot tub and then—

Well, here it had sat for another three years.

“I didn’t know you had a hot tub,” Bella said, poking at the wooden planks of the deck, “Edward never said anything. Of course, I guess that would have meant seeing me in a swimsuit.”

Yes, Carlisle wished he was plastered.

Bella looked over at him again, blushing furiously, and trying to keep her eyes trained on his face, “So, you think you’ve been in there long enough?”

In the kitchen, after Carlisle had reluctantly agreed to this madness, his first thought had been to escort Bella to the bedroom Edward had set up for her. True, it was a little awkward, but at least it was better than taking her to the master bedroom.

Unfortunately, Edward had beaten them there.

The room was littered with scented candles of all shapes and sizes and dozens upon dozens of red roses. Upon walking in, the stereo automatically turned on, softly crooning out George Michael’s “Careless Whisper”.

Carlisle had immediately shut the door, doused all the candles, and unplugged the stereo.

Plus, after a bit of thought, he’d realized that a bed would be—unpleasant.

It wasn’t just Carlisle’s hands that were cold. He’d performed enough physicals to know that patients who otherwise loved him dreaded the feeling of his ice-cold fingers in delicate places. Carlisle couldn’t even imagine what it’d feel like to have something larger than a few fingers in—well—the point was that Carlisle had realized that this might require a bit of thought.

He’d thought about the shower, that at least could conceivably get him to a tolerable temperature, but then they’d have to have intercourse standing up which just made it more likely he’d accidentally slam Bella through the wall.

And then, finally, he’d remembered the ill-fated jacuzzi.

And here he’d been sitting for the last half hour, wondering if he was warm enough yet, what he was doing here, and if Bella was sure she wanted to do this.

He looked over at her, hoping he didn’t look too desperate, and asked again, “Are you quite sure you want to do this, Bella?”

Bella nodded, that very Bella determined look on her face again, “I’m ready. If it’s not now then it’s—Well, it’s not going to be anytime soon. Are you—are you sure you want to do this?”

No.

What came out of his mouth was, “Absolutely, I just—”

At Bella’s sharper look he deflated and sighed, “I wish we weren’t in this situation, but I understand where you’re coming from. I—If I were in your position, and you in mine, I would hope that you would be compassionate enough to help me.”

Granted, when he’d been turned, finding a lover had been the very last thing on his mind. No, for the first years of his new life he’d been fixated on the idea of killing himself and then on building up his resistance to human blood.

No, Carlisle didn’t think he’d thought about marriage, seriously about love, until Esme came into his life with eyes filled with stars.

However, if he had, if he’d been a young woman as Bella had and discovered all hopes of marriage ripped away from him as she now had. Then he imagined he would have been very appreciative of what she would do for him.

Even if it was ridiculous.

“I agreed to this,” he said more gently, “As you noted, somehow all parties involved have agreed to this. I am more than happy to help.”

Bella just nodded, still flushing terribly, and Carlisle sighed and glanced down at himself. Without blood, there was no reddened skin, instead he was glittering in the afternoon sunlight. He held out his hand to her, “How does this feel?”

She took it, considered it with a frown, “I think this should be good.”

  
“Good is not good enough,” Carlisle said, “Imagine having this inside you.”

  
Bella grimaced, thought harder, and then said, “It’s warm enough.”

She inhaled, stood, and faced him and the water. For a moment she paused, clearly debating how she was going to go about this. He could imagine her taking the towel off only at the very last second, letting it drop but covering herself with her arms, it was clear in this moment that she had never done this before and never even imagined getting this far.

She took another deep breath and decided to take the route of thoughtless courage, as she always did. She let the towel drop completely to her feet and then kicked it off the deck and into the yard.

Well, alright then.

Sitting there, Carlisle couldn’t help but let his eyes wander over her. Couldn’t help, who was he kidding? This was the moment he should—no—needed to look her over. If Carlisle didn’t do something fast this would be even more embarrassing for both of them.

Despite having sat naked in a hot tub for ages now, the girl only in a skimpy towel across from him, he’d been too despairing to get in the kind of mood necessary to do what Bella asked of him.

He now had to make up for lost time. Even if that meant getting an eyeful of a girl who until today had been his daughter-in-law and he might think of as a daughter in the future when she joined the coven.

He was about to sleep with his daughter.

That was the exact opposite kind of thought he needed to have right now.

Carlisle forced himself to focus on her again.

She was very attractive, but then she always had been, even in the very beginning when she’d first caught Edward’s eye.

She wasn’t quite beautiful in the way Rosalie was beautiful, her eyes were a bit too large for that, her legs too thin and coltish. However, in a strange way she’d always reminded him of Audrey Hepburn. Bella was taller, not quite as thin, had more curves to her, but she had those same large dark eyes framed by equally dark hair. She had that same refined, classic, beauty that belonged on a silver screen, not stripped naked in front of him as she approached his jacuzzi.

  
(Focus, Carlisle.)

Still, losing her clothes did nothing to detract from that beauty.

There was a certain sense of softness, of fragility, that came with looking at a human woman with a vampire’s eyes. Carlisle could tell why Edward touched her so carefully, her pale skin made it look like a stray breeze could knock her over. Nevertheless, she stood with a quiet dignity, forcing herself to be brave and look confident in front of him. There was strength in her, both despite her human nature and perhaps because of it.

She didn’t flinch as she met his eyes. There was a spark in them, an internal fire, that was purely her own. He couldn’t remember seeing a similar fire in Esme’s for such a very long time.

She wasn’t aroused yet, not like earlier with Edward, but her heart was pounding with a nervous anticipation. Her burning eyes landed on him, and with painstaking care so as not to trip, Bella began making her way towards him.

She tripped anyway.

“I’m okay!” she cried out as she caught herself on her hands, whipping her head up and motioning for Carlisle to stay where he was, “Nothing’s broken! This is a normal thing! Bella can’t sexy walk while naked, it’s cool!”

He would not laugh.

Carlisle would not laugh.

God would give him strength and he would not laugh.

She let out a deep, trembling, breath and pushed herself back up to her feet. Faster this time, giving her less of an opportunity to fall, she made her way into the hot tub, taking one step at a time with a death grip on the hand rail, until she was standing waist high in the water.

She turned to him with a triumphant grin, “I made it!”  
  


“You certainly made it,” Carlisle agreed, and then they stared at each other.

Bella looked at him owlishly, he looked back, and it struck him that neither of them knew how to start this. Bella really shouldn’t stay in here longer than fifteen minutes at a time, which meant they couldn’t exactly dally around, but here they were wasting precious seconds just looking at each other like idiots.

He reached out for her first, relying on instinct for the slow, human movements.

In the water, she didn’t feel too hot, not like she would out of it. The reminders of her humanity were in her thrumming heartbeat as well as the floral scent of her skin. It’d been so long since he’d thought of blood as food, Bella had been a part of his life so long, that the smell didn’t trigger the thirst.

Instead, it was just an aspect of their surroundings. Just as he could smell the sweet scent of evergreens, of the summer grass and flowers, he was struck by the heady smell of Bella Swan.

That helped, he imagined if she’d smelled too much like a meal, then he’d have even more trouble doing this.

He pulled her into his lap, situating her carefully, and gave her a pointed look, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

She nodded, face burning under his gaze, but she didn’t look away or relent either. Apparently, they really were going to do this.

Perhaps, if Carlisle hadn’t been married and had nothing to compare it to, or if he’d been a little more willing to be reckless, it would have been better. Perhaps if he’d allow himself more than gentle petting or sitting stock still under her virgin ministrations, chanting himself “don’t crush her, don’t crush her, don’t crush her”, then it might have been alright.

As it was, it wasn’t even nervous fumbling in the backseat of a car. Instead, he imagined it was a bit more like what making love to a starfish must be like. Bella, for her safety, was on top and spent a full minute gritting her teeth against the pain of taking in such a large object for the first time in her life. Carlisle was on the bottom, desperately picturing the naked Bella as she’d been walking towards him (because he certainly wasn’t picturing his wife) in order to keep his equipment functioning until the end.

He didn’t thrust, because that would crush her. He didn’t hold on to her, because he’d break her ribs. Edward might have been reluctant, but his fears of being intimate with her as a human weren’t entirely unfounded. The entire experience became an exercise in not causing grievous bodily harm to Bella Swan.

They passed muster, intercourse was had, but he was sure it wasn’t anything close to what Bella had imagined when she said, “let me feel what it means to be loved.”

In the end she collapsed on top of him, covered in sweat and chlorine scented water, and noted in a daze, “That wasn’t good for you, was it?”

Finally, he couldn’t help it, he laughed. He was shaking with the force of his laughter, unintentionally shaking her with him, “No, I’m sorry, but no—I hope it was good for you?”

She was laughing now too, “Well, you know what? It wasn’t too bad.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t—”

She stopped him before he could start, holding a hand to his lips, “Please, this, this right now—I think this is what I really wanted. You’ve delivered everything you promised, Carlisle.”

She pulled herself out of the hot tub and laid out on the deck, tucking her arms behind her head as she stared at the clear sky, allowing her red skin to cool and pale back into its natural milk white tone, “Not exactly what I imagined but—it was good, I’m glad we did this. I’m glad I—that I know what this feels like.”

What this feels like. She didn’t mean the sex. No, she meant the afterglow, this moment in the aftermath where they drifted through the world together.

Carlisle couldn’t help but smile fondly at her, as she let her eyes trace over clouds. Even after everything that had happened, despite the fact that they were still undressed, he felt comfortable here with her.

Some indefinable, and perhaps unbreakable, bond had just been formed between the pair of them.

“It should be good for you,” Bella said with a frown, jarring him from his thoughts.

“Sorry?” Carlisle asked.

“This isn’t just about me,” Bella said, with a sigh, sitting up to look at him, “Well, I mean, it is but—I know we can’t have great sex, or anything, it might be good for me, but you just have to lie there. There must be some way I can make it better. I mean we’ve got a whole damn weekend to fill up here.”

Oh no.

He turned to look at her fully, “Bella, you don’t have to.”

“No, no,” Bella said, holding up both hands palm outward in defense, “I owe you; I owe you big. If Carlisle Cullen has some naughty, sexual, fantasy that he can’t play out with Esme because it’s too damn embarrassing or weird, I am now your girl.”

“Sexual fantasy?” he spluttered.

“Sexy patient,” Bella started listing off, “Sexy schoolgirl. Sexy vampire hunter. Sexy Victorian vampire victim. Sexy schoolgirl abducted by evil tentacle monsters. Sexy anime schoolgirl. Sexy magical anime schoolgirl. Sexy She-Ra, Princess of Power—”

She took a breath and just kept going, “Sexy bondage. Sexy pirates. Sexy whipped cream and chocolate sauce. Sexy fondue. Sexy strip teases. Sexy pole dancing. Sexy attempts at pole dancing—”

Carlisle was dying. No, he was dead, he was dead and in a hot tub.

“Sexy Edward style cuddling, I’m great at that one. Sexy spy. Sexy assassin. Sexy cops. Sexy plumber. Sexy pizza girl. Sexy alien abduction. Sexy Amazon warrior princess. Sexy—Um, I’m sure there’s like a billion and a half more sexy things in the universe out there.”

“I don’t—” Carlisle started desperately, “That is, I don’t have any sexual fantasies.”

  
Bella looked at him like he was insane, “Carlisle, we just made sweet love in your hot tub. You can tell me, trust me, I will not judge.”

He really didn’t have any sexual fantasies though.

Emmett would probably laugh in his face, but, frankly, Carlisle didn’t spend that much time thinking about sex outside the act. He and Esme would make love and, well, that was all he wanted.

He didn’t need a strange power fantasy to make up for what he didn’t have. He also didn’t need… tentacle monsters.

“You want to hear mine?” Bella asked with raised eyebrows.

“No!” he said a little too quickly, “No, that’s—I do not need to hear your sexual fantasies, Bella.”

Bella flushed with embarrassment and looked away, probably wondering if it’d been wise to reveal to him that she had sexual fantasies, perhaps involving Japanese cartoon schoolgirls and tentacles.

Finally, he offered, “I like musicals.”

After a very long pause Bella noted, “I did not see that one coming. I’m—you know what, I can work with that.”

“No, no, not like that,” Carlisle said desperately, knowing his face would be bright red if he were human, “The great classic filmed musicals. Edward tends to find them—pedantic and beneath him.”

You’d think, given Edward’s tastes, that he’d be quite the fan of musical theater. Perhaps the music didn’t annoy him so much, but he tended to find musicals insipid, uninspired, and dull when compared to opera, ballet, and symphonies.

Then again, sometimes Edward just liked to be contrary. Half the reason he loathed both Motown, the British Invasion, and generally any song that came from the 1960’s was because Carlisle had been so enthralled with the music.

“Esme has no real interest in cinema,” Carlisle continued, “If you wanted to watch ‘My Fair Lady’ with me, I think that would be a fine way to spend the weekend.”

When Bella left Sunday night, they had one afternoon in a hot tub, one heartfelt and long overdue conversation, one life changing resolution, and five movie musicals accompanied by two bowls of popcorn resting between them.

And, though Carlisle didn’t know it as he drove her back to her house, there was also one unborn child.


	6. The Wedding

Even before the child, after that weekend, it was clear the seeds of Alice’s prophecy had been sown.

Because for the next two weeks, as the wedding steadily approached, nothing changed.

Edward, Alice, Esme, and Jasper returned from hunting that Monday morning. Carlisle had cleaned up the evidence of Bella’s time spent there that weekend, not so much to hide anything, but to help lock it out of his mind. When they returned the house was clean, the hot tub covered, the movies returned to the shelf and only the trace of her scent lingered in the air like an afterthought.

He needn’t have bothered.

Because as the days passed it felt increasingly as if it had all been some strange waking dream.

Alice continued to plan the wedding, not faltering even for a moment, no sign of cancelling with the caterers, venue, or sending notices to the guests. The only sign that anything, perhaps, was different was the challenging glares she sent Carlisle whenever he happened to meet her eye.

As if she was just daring him to open his mouth and say something.

Esme briefly discussed Bella and Carlisle’s lost weekend, pleased when he dully told her it went well enough, and contentedly imagined Bella and Carlisle’s coming honeymoon on Isle Esme. She didn’t flinch from his touch, look at him with betrayal, ask what it was like to be with another woman, if he’d even tried to talk Bella out of it, or anything of that nature.

She didn’t even seem to notice that Carlisle never came to bed after that weekend. That he spent the nights in his study staring dully out the window and letting his mind wander darker places. Instead, Esme was caught up in the love affair of Bella and Edward, her poor beautiful son, with Carlisle standing somewhere in the middle of it all.

He was starting to wonder, in the darkest part of his heart, if she even cared.

Jasper spared Carlisle a dull, sardonic, look now and then but didn’t say anything. He usually didn’t, Jasper was a man of very few words, but in this case, he didn’t have to. Whatever he was thinking, Carlisle certainly agreed. Still, his silence only fed into the surreal atmosphere that clung to the Cullen household after the weekend.

Rosalie and Emmett returned home just in time for the last-minute wedding preparations. Emmett fitting back into his tuxedo with a grin and looking forward to the DJ at the reception. Rosalie, the world’s most reluctant, scowling, bridesmaid as she tried to summon the will to be happy for Edward and her future sister-in-law. Naturally, she hadn’t been told what had happened in her absence.

As for Bella, she returned back to her own world and life, and he didn’t see her again. No, her time was monopolized by Edward and Alice as the big day approached.

And that was it, the strangest thing, everyone acted as if the big day were still approaching.

As if, despite everything that had happened and Bella’s decision, she and Edward were still to be married.

Carlisle wondered if he’d been hit on the head. Wondered if, perhaps, he’d gotten the wrong idea from Bella. He didn’t think he’d misunderstood her, she’d been very clear. He also didn’t think she’d lose her nerve or go back on her decision. She’d said it with such conviction, and he knew, he knew she had the strength and courage to do this.

He knew she’d certainly try.

Except Edward, Edward out of everyone else looked as if nothing had happened. No, that something wonderful had happened, that everything was going his way and he could check off that one little box that had been bothering the pair of them for so long.

Leaving Bella had almost destroyed him. When he thought she was dead he in fact had sought the means to destroy himself.

Carlisle had thought that if Bella were to ever leave him, there would be nothing left of Edward. He thought Edward would cling to her with all he had, the way she had clung to him, and would desperately try to keep their crumbling relationship together.

Yet here he was, as if the worst was now behind them. Even Carlisle’s constant thoughts of confusion and doubt did nothing to dampen his spirits.

Which left Carlisle feeling that Bella must not have spoken to him after all. That perhaps, like Edward, Bella was waiting until it was far too late.

The night before the wedding, Carlisle finally broke.

He’d said his piece to Bella, he’d certainly played his role, and now should have been the time for him to take his exit. Be there for Edward, for Bella, if they needed him, but nothing more. What words were left to be said, that was between them.

Or so he had thought.

Except, he couldn’t stand here and say nothing. Watch as it all kept marching on towards inevitable disaster and unhappiness. Eventually, he had to find the will to say something.

“Edward,” he said, walking into the foyer, catching Edward at the piano.

Edward was smiling as he stared down at the keys with an unbearable fondness. Carlisle remembered when it had only been Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, and Grieg that came out of that piano, as Edward’s inspiration to compose failed him. He remembered when Edward had stopped playing at all, when he had merely sat at the keys despondent. Tonight, it was Bella’s lullaby again.

Only, it appeared he was in the midst of adding a second movement to the piece, composing as he played. Still so very inspired by Bella’s existence in his life.

At Carlisle’s greeting he lifted his head and hands from the keys, still smiling, and Carlisle felt his heart breaking.

“Carlisle,” Edward said, “Can you believe it’s finally happening?”

Carlisle said nothing, just walked closer until he was standing over the piano, letting Edward talk, “Finally, after everything, tomorrow it’ll happen. We’ll be married, there’ll be a Mrs. Edward Cullen, can you believe it?”

“Edward,” Carlisle said again, forcing himself to say it, “Have you talked to Bella at all?”

Edward’s smile abruptly disappeared and Carlisle was sure, even if he’d somehow avoided it for two weeks, that he was now seeing Carlisle’s every doubt and Bella’s every expression from that conversation.

“Carlisle,” Edward said carefully.

“Edward,” Carlisle repeated, “There’s still time. I know it might seem like it’s too late, but you can still turn back—”

“We’ve talked,” he said dully, closing the cover over the keys with a harsh thud, eyes flat and expressionless.

“You have?” Carlisle balked.

“She’s getting cold feet,” Edward said dismissively as he got to his feet, clearly intent on walking out of the room, “It’s nothing, just a few last-minute jitters, nothing unexpected.”

“You mean—” Carlisle started as he followed after him, Carlisle’s expression transforming to one of horror.

“I reassured her, of course,” Edward said, not even pausing as he strode out of the room, “We’ve loved each other so long now. Sometimes, it feels as if I was born loving Bella Swan. Why should a single moment of doubt ruin that?”

“Edward!” Carlisle asked, moving forward at vampire speed to pull Edward back to face him, “Did you even listen to her?! Did you even let her tell you why?!”

“Of course I listened,” Edward sneered, clenching his fists in useless anger as he tried to hold his ground against Carlisle, “I know what you think of us, Carlisle, I’m not deaf. It’s not like what you think—not what she thinks. I love her. I will always love her and there will never be another!”

He shouted this last bit, daring Carlisle to disagree, and yet all Carlisle could think was how hauntingly familiar and unfamiliar Edward looked. The boy he’d known for a hundred years was still in him, but his expression was that of a stranger’s.

Even when he’d left for those years on his own, dismissive, contemptuous, proud, and disdainful his face didn’t look like it did now. So filled with pain, terror, and rage.

“You’re not ready,” Carlisle said simply.

“I am ready!” Edward spat back, “We’re both ready! Bella knows that, she’ll see it, we just have to get through this—”

“A wedding is an exchange of vows, Edward,” Carlisle said, his own voice becoming flat as he felt something cold seeping through him, “It is not something that should be decided by one party alone. It is not something you should push through out of a feeling of obligation. We don’t live in that kind of world.”

This was not an arranged marriage, something between families, where neither bride nor groom had even met.

Edward scoffed, “She’s not thinking clearly, she thinks I don’t love her, as if that were even possible. You shouldn’t have fed into her fears, Carlisle. Do you have any idea what kind of damage you left behind for me to clean up?”

Damage he left behind, was that how Edward saw it? That Carlisle had foolishly said a little too much, encouraged Bella’s thoughts in the wrong direction, and that if he’d only kept his mouth shut Bella would be a happily blushing bride?

“You didn’t have to encourage her,” Edward hissed, before relenting, looking up at Carlisle with the betrayal Carlisle had expected at the idea of Carlisle putting his hands on Bella, not from merely talking with her, “You know I love her, you used to know I love her. Why didn’t you tell her?”

He had many times, and going into that conversation, he had believed it too. Walking out of it, standing here now, he couldn’t help but wonder. Perhaps it was as Bella had said, perhaps Edward just liked the idea of being in love with her.

And Edward, on hearing that thought, looked as if he’d been punched in the stomach.

“How many times has she tried to tell you no?” Carlisle asked.

Edward flinched, looked down at his shoes, and muttered, “Every night since.”

Carlisle could picture it only too easily.

There would be Bella, pale and nervous, filled with both dread and boundless courage as she sat on her small bed. She’d look at Edward, always out of place in her small human world, her heart breaking in her eyes over and over, love in every gesture.

She’d say it too quickly, too flatly, first, just to get the words out as fast as she could before she choked on them.

Perhaps he’d make her repeat them, unable to believe what he’d heard, and she’d comply even through her own tears.

She’d be woefully honest and self-deprecating as always. It’d be for him, for his freedom to find the being he could truly love, and not for her. To Bella, her future was meaningless and bleak, eternity of nothing but the memories of the illusion of love.

And Edward would laugh at her. He would laugh fondly, tell her it was only nerves, only that ever present fear of abandonment. He would not leave until she told him to go.

And when she told him to go, when she tried to say it with all the determination and grief she had, he would say that it only counted if she meant it.

Carlisle, hesitantly, touched Edward’s shoulder, “It’s not too late, Edward, don’t make her go through with this.”

Edward jerked back, letting Carlisle’s hand fall, and quickly said, “No—No, I, Carlisle—I can’t lose her.”

Did he ever truly have her if he couldn’t even listen to her now?

“Carlisle,” Edward said, voice breaking in horror and grief at the idea of losing Bella so soon after he’d found her again, “You don’t know what you’re talking about! You’re—how could you think this?!”

“Edward,” he said, feeling his own heart tear in half, “Let her go.”

Edward just shook his head, “You’re wrong, I love her, and she loves me too. We’ll get married, and we’ll have—”

“A wedding night?” Carlisle finished for him, watching as Edward flinched under Carlisle’s harsh words and glare, “A honeymoon?”

“Carlisle,” Edward begged, “Please.”

Carlisle let out a breath, closed his eyes, and imagined walking to Bella’s house right then and there. He’d find her, talk to her, and somehow when the sun rose tomorrow the wedding wouldn’t happen.

But the sun rose, Carlisle remained in his own house, and Edward didn’t call off the wedding.

Instead the decorations were all in place, flowers artfully woven around wooden posts and the makeshift altar. The weather was just as Alice predicted, nice enough for an outdoor wedding but not so nice that Edward couldn’t stand outside.

At the altar, Carlisle’s makeshift family assembled as groomsmen and bridesmaids, each undoubtedly the picture of perfection to the wedding photographer. Guests arrived, her mother, stepfather and a small collection of high school friends for Bella and the Denali coven for Edward.

In a crowd of humans, the coven stuck out as too beautiful sore thumbs. Tanya looked at Edward and the altar with fond exasperation, as if she always knew that one day Edward would find someone to catch his eye, and now he would never grace her bed.

Carlisle stood at the front, somehow roped into officiating a wedding that should never happen. His eye fell on Edward. Gone was the agitation, fear, and anger from the night before. Instead, he looked out to where Bella would walk down the aisle, all nervous anticipation, as if this were merely the beginning of their lives together.

And then she appeared.

Alice had done well. She was a vision in white, looking for all the world like an enchanted princess escaped from the wood. A crown of flowers had been woven into her dark hair, holding the veil in place. Her lips were bright and painted, mascara applied to her eyelashes, blush to her cheeks, all of it bringing out her dark eyes.

In another world perhaps she’d be smiling.

Instead, her mouth was a grim line.

In fact, Carlisle thought with narrowing eyes, she looked positively awful. Beneath the makeup, perhaps not evident to a human’s eye, she looked ill. Her face looked gaunt, thinner after only two weeks, and her face unnaturally pale.

As she stood at the end of the aisle she quaked, gripped Charlie Swan’s arm a little too tightly, and looked as if she was barely managing to stay on her feet. Charlie made to move forward but Bella didn’t make a move. Instead, lifting her head, she first looked at Edward and then her eyes moved to Carlisle.

Even through the veil, he felt as if by simply looking her in the eyes, some unspoken, unknowable, truth passed between them. Carlisle didn’t know what it was, couldn’t explain what it was, but in that one second he felt as if they both saw through to the heart of one another.

Then Bella bent forward and vomited violently.

No one said a word, no one dared to take a breath, instead they all stared in numb horror at the green puddle on the carpet and green splatters on her beautiful dress.

Emmett opened his mouth, likely to say something purely Emmett, and was only stopped when Jasper jabbed him in the ribs. The silence continued, “here comes the bride” having stopped halfway through the first measure.

Bella, slowly, looked up at the altar again, dark eyes not seeming to take in anything. Once again, instead of Edward, she looked straight at Carlisle who looked helplessly back.

She let loose a single, clearly audible, curse, “Fuck.”

Then, taking a step backwards, then another, “I’m so sorry!”

She threw the bouquet behind her, the flowers falling in the puddle of vomit. She desperately picked up her train and dress, tripping and hobbling as she ran as far and fast as one could in a wedding dress.

Charlie Swan recovered first, staring after his runaway bride daughter, calling out to her in shock and growing concern, “Bella?!”

Bella didn’t wait, didn’t even glance back, became just a fading vision in white as she disappeared into the tree line. Charlie quickly tore after her, disappearing into the trees after her, leaving the rest of them behind.

Edward hadn’t moved, hadn’t even breathed, even as not so far away, Carlisle could make out the sound of someone retching violently. Looking out at the audience, Carlisle couldn’t help but meet the eyes of the Denali coven, taking in Tanya’s raising eyebrows and pursed lips.

Carlisle tore his eyes away, cleared his throats, and after a beat of silence addressed the guests, “I’m afraid, it seems the wedding is off. Your gifts will be returned shortly. Our apologies.”

With that, he stepped off the altar and made his way back to the car, leaving the guests, his family, to take their cue and disperse.

He hesitated only a moment, listening to Bella’s continued vomiting, and wondered if he shouldn’t check on her. But then, her father was with her, and Carlisle was surely the last person she wanted to see right now.

Looking over his shoulder he noticed Edward still standing dumbly at the altar.

While Rosalie, Emmett, Jasper, and Alice had moved to the reception area, sitting down at the tables with the Denali sisters, looking as if they were trying to grapple with what had just happened, Edward was right where Carlisle had left him.

“Edward?” Carlisle called out.

Edward didn’t move, didn’t even look out to where Bella had disappeared. It was as if just by standing there, he could hold onto the dream just a little longer. Carlisle imagined that long after the guests, his own family, left he’d still be standing there. Holding onto a moment that never existed.

Reluctantly, Carlisle turned away and headed home.


	7. The Runaway Bride

“So, are we even going to talk about it?”

Naturally, Emmett was the first to break. Though that said, Carlisle was almost impressed by how long he had managed to hold his tongue.

There’d been no grin, laughter, or comment of, “That was the greatest wedding ever” as he’d walked through the door with the others. Surprising, for Emmett, as he usually reveled in his complete lack of tact.

However, even Emmett realized now was not the time.

Since the rest of the Cullen family had returned home from the wedding, tense and nervous, no one had said a word. They had instead spread out across the living room, none leaving yet none doing anything either.

Rosalie and Emmett sat on the couch, eyes wandering constantly to Edward, trying to assess the situation, and likely wondering what the hell they could have missed while they were away.

Alice was seated by the window, staring out into the night, her forehead creased as she allowed visions to silently overtake her. Likely looking for exactly how this had happened. (Carlisle did wonder that himself, because surely, if Alice had known this was the result of the wedding, she would have at least tried to postpone).

Jasper looked as if he wasn’t quite sure where to stand, halfway in the living room and halfway in the kitchen, much as he always wasn’t quite sure where he stood in regard to Edward and his human fiancée.

As for Edward and Esme, Edward sat opposite from Rosalie and Emmett, Esme having guided him gently down onto the sofa. She now sat beside him, holding his hand comfortingly, but he didn’t seem notice. Edward, for the past several hours, had been staring down at the carpet as if it were the only thing in the world.

Together the Cullens were a collection of marble statues in a modern art museum, dressed in formal clothing befit for a wedding, but wearing the poses of those attending a wake.

It was now almost midnight and no one answered Emmett’s question.

“Seriously,” Emmett started again, “Are we just not going to say anything? At all?”

Alice finally turned her head from the window and glared at Emmett, “About what?”

“About what?” Emmett balked, before motioning around them, “I don’t know, maybe Bella blowing chunks then ditching Edward at the altar? Maybe that? I know I want to talk about it.”

Rosalie winced and jabbed Emmett in the ribs, hissing out, “Blowing chunks?”

“Did she not blow chunks all over her dress?” Emmett asked, “Which was amazing by the—”

Rosalie jabbed Emmett yet again, which seemed to be enough to remind him of the time and the place. Namely, that Edward, the groom who had been abandoned at the altar, was sitting right across from him.

Emmett grimaced, then held up his hands in defense, “Look, just—When Rose and I left, Edward and Bells were this nauseatingly happy couple. We come back and… Anyone mind filling us in a little?”

“They were happy,” Esme insisted on Edward’s behalf, Edward seemingly unable to say anything in response, unable to even hear it.

Had they been happy?

A few weeks ago, before all of this, Carlisle would have agreed. Edward, certainly, came back to life as Bella reentered his world after Italy. Bella seemed much the same. Now, however, Carlisle found himself questioning even that.

Had it been happiness or only a desperate desire to be happy? He remembered Bella in the kitchen, stating that after Italy, she was determined to hold onto Edward, to not lose herself to the pit of depression, with everything she had.

Carlisle didn’t think that was the same thing as happiness.

“And?” Emmett prompted, and when no one responded, he continued, “Happy brides just normally run away from their husbands? Is that a thing now?”

“Emmett!” Esme hissed out, glancing down at Edward, who still had yet to respond.

“What?” Emmett asked, looking around for some sign of understanding, “Come on, somebody’s got to say it. We can’t just sit here waiting forever, can we?”

“Well, we are vampires, forever’s actually something we could manage,” Rosalie noted with a small snort, the slightest quirk to her smile, only to try to suppress it as she glanced over at Edward.

Edward, however, didn’t respond as he usually would. There was no eyeroll of exasperation, sharp retort, glare, or anything of the sort. There was nothing, absolutely nothing in him, the heart of him still waiting at that altar for Bella to return.

Rosalie let out an aggravated, and held up her hands as Emmett had, the usual indication that she was about to damn the torpedoes and speak her mind no matter what Edward thought of it.

“Fine, I’ll start, since Edward’s just going to pick it out of my brain anyway,” Rosalie said, back straightening and eyes defiant as she looked across at Edward, “I’m more than a little surprised, I certainly didn’t see that one coming. It’d be nice if Bella could have done it a little less dramatically, definitely a lot less publicly, but you know what? It was about damn time she started taking this seriously.”

“Rosalie!” Esme interjected with horror, but Rosalie only spared Esme a flat look, as if to note Edward was going to hear it anyway so they might as well all hear it.

“We’ve all known that Bella was throwing away the most precious gift she had, a human future, for something she doesn’t understand,” Rosalie glared across at Edward, blaming him as the root of the whole mess with Bella just as she had from the very beginning.

She then looked at each of them in turn, just as accusing, “We stood by and we did nothing as we watched this girl, who wasn’t dying, who should have had nothing to do with us, throw her life away because she thinks vampires are sparkly.”

She amended her statement with a scowl, “Well some of us tried, but Bella didn’t want to listen.”

Rosalie’s failed intervention, her personal confession to Bella, was apparently still a bitter memory.

“It might be a little late in the game, it might have been the most embarrassing moment of my life, but at least she finally came to her senses,” Rosalie finished before looking at Edward rather lamely and adding, “Sorry it didn’t work out, Edward, but even you thought this was the best option a few months ago.”

Edward didn’t even look at her.

Instead, it was Alice who gaped, both astounded and furious in the same instant, “Wow, you really just had to get that all out there, didn’t you?”

“What’s the point of bottling it in?” Rosalie asked, nodding at Edward, “He gets to hear it all anyway.”

“Don’t you even feel slightly bad?” Alice asked, “Don’t you think that maybe, just maybe, Edward lost the love of his life? That maybe Bella just lost hers too?”

“I didn’t see you doing anything about it,” Rosalie dismissed, “And you must have at least seen this dumpster fire flickering on the horizon.”

Alice scowled, fidgeted, and turned to glare out the window, muttering, “There must have been a dog at the wedding.”

“What?” Rosalie asked.

Alice turned back, speaking louder, glaring daggers at Rosalie, “There must have been some dog at the wedding, and, I don’t know, really determined to camp outside her house or something. I haven’t been able to see anything about Bella for a week and a half. So sorry, Rose, but I didn’t see any more of the wedding than you people did. Blame Jacob Black.”

“Was he even at the wedding?” Rosalie asked Emmett in confusion.

Emmett shrugged, “Babe, we were barely at that wedding.”

Carlisle couldn’t remember either, he didn’t think he’d seen him, but he’d also been very distracted by his personal horror that the wedding was even happening. More, as Emmett said, the wedding hardly lasted long enough for Carlisle to get a good view of all the guests.

Still, he hadn’t known Alice hadn’t been able to see the wedding. She’d spent the week glaring at him but had moved forward with the same confidence as Edward himself. From the way the pair of them had acted, what had happened today was not even a possibility.

“Can you see her now?” Carlisle asked her.

Everyone looked at Alice at that, even Edward looked up from the carpet to stare at her with empty eyes. They waited with bated breath for the answer to what seemed like the greatest question in the world: what would Bella Swan do now?

“No, just—” Alice rubbed at her temples, “No, I’m getting nothing, I guess Black had to talk to her after the wedding too. Like just attending the wedding wasn’t good enough for him.”

She then glared back at Carlisle, “Though I really should be blaming you. I told you what would happen, I told you very clearly what would happen, and you went and did it anyway.”

Carlisle had been hoping that Alice would not bring that up.

“Did it?” Rosalie asked, looking over at Carlisle in confusion, “What does Carlisle have to do with any of this?”

“Shockingly little,” Carlisle said with a wry smile.

“Carlisle,” Esme said, now giving him a look akin to betrayal, as if Alice had just reminded her where the blame should lie, “Do you really think this would have happened without you? Can you really say that?”

Carlisle looked over at Edward, who was meeting his eyes silently, pleading for Carlisle to say something, do something, or else say nothing at all because saying something would destroy him.

Carlisle remembered the night before, his conversation with Edward, and he found that his patience had run out. He no longer had the will to remain silent, no matter what emotional blow it might land on Edward.

“Yes,” Carlisle said, “Perhaps not now, but someday, we would have arrived at this moment. Bella and Edward should not have gotten married, and I’m glad Bella, at least, recognized that.”

“Carlisle,” Edward croaked out, his voice oddly rough, almost human sounding under the strain of his emotions.

Carlisle had already said his piece to Edward though, so instead he looked at the rest of them, “That said, I think I should make it clear, that no matter what happened today, what happens tomorrow, Bella is being turned.”

“What?” Rosalie asked, her tone dull, disbelieving, outrage on the verge of being something far more potent.

Edward didn’t say a word, but his mouth fell open in dull, wordless, horror. To him this was undoubtedly the worst future, the one where Bella rejects him, but becomes a vampire regardless. Carlisle imaged Edward had convinced himself that if Bella were to ever leave him behind it would only be for the human world, that Bella’s link to the supernatural centered solely upon him.

It likely never occurred to him that this future was possible.

“She knows too much,” Carlisle said, “The Volturi know that she knows too much. Perhaps Bella never should have been brought into our world, but she is here now, and there is nothing any of us can do about it. It is what it is and her joining this coven is not contingent upon marrying Edward.”

“Bella was only ever here for Edward,” Rosalie said, motioning to Edward wildly, “We brought her to our house, to that stupid baseball game, because of Edward. We wouldn’t have even spoken to her, if it wasn’t for Edward. Why is she suddenly joining our family if she’s not even here for Edward anymore?”

“Because without our intervention she will die,” Carlisle shot back, “And frankly, we might die too.”

“It may not look like it, but Bella’s life is in as much peril as any of ours ever were,” he said, eyes raking over them all, willing them to remember the world they lived in and the laws they each abided by, “The Volturi will come for her, and if she’s not turned, they will either turn her themselves or else kill her. As for us, we will likely be killed for flagrantly breaking the only law in our world, and I cannot say we didn’t earn it.” Carlisle paused then, looked at Edward, and added, “And she is worth more than her relationship with Edward.”

“Then—” Emmett started only to cut himself off, look around at all the others, and ask, “Then is that it? Bella and Edward, it’s… It’s just over?”

Carlisle looked over at Edward, but he was back to staring at nothing, looking past Carlisle and through the wall as if he could somehow see Bella through it if he only stared hard enough.

And perhaps he did manage to stare hard enough because just then a phone rang. They all, as one, looked towards Edward. Only, by the second ring it was obvious that it wasn’t his phone, it was Rosalie’s.

She pulled it out with raised eyebrows, looked down at the caller ID, dumbfounded, “What the fuck?”

She looked over at Alice, panicked, just as the third ring sounded, “What does she want? Did she forget Edward’s number? Why’s she calling me?!”

Alice looked at the phone then back at Rosalie with the same amount of panic, “I don’t know! I still can’t see anything! She must—I don’t know if she’s changing her mind or still hanging around Black!”

“Holy fuck,” Emmett said looking at Jasper, “Do you think she eloped with Jacob Black?”

Jasper’s eyebrows raised and he looked damningly over towards Carlisle, Carlisle forcing himself to look away, only hoping that Emmett didn’t notice.

Rosalie looked down at the phone in horror and indecision, finger hovering over the talk button, but before she could push it, Edward held out his hand.

“Rosalie, please, the phone,” he said.

Rosalie hesitated, torn between handing it over to the person she thought Bella was trying to talk to, the person she perhaps should talk to, and taking the call herself in case Bella truly had meant to call her.

“The phone, Rosalie,” Edward insisted, the barest flicker of anger appearing in his eyes now, the first sign of life in hours.

Rosalie handed her phone over to him. Edward pressed talk, Bella’s voice loud enough to be heard by every single one of them, “Hi, Rosalie, it’s—this is Bella, you probably didn’t even know I had your number.”

Bella let out a small, awkward laugh, but beneath it was something more than awkwardness. She sounded distressed, almost panicked, and barely managing to hide it. Carlisle glanced at the clock, it was now twelve thirty a.m.

Bella took a deep, steadying, breath and continued, “I know this is the first time I’ve called, and I know we don’t really—talk. I know you don’t like me, but I was hoping I could ask for, well, advice and a little bit of help.”

Bella paused, waited, and then let out a tentative, “Rosalie?”

Edward looked at Rosalie pointedly, Rosalie looked back at him in disbelief, speaking in a tone inaudible through the phone, “She thinks she’s talking to me, Edward!”

Edward didn’t say anything, merely raised a single eyebrow.

“I’m not pretending you’re not standing over my shoulder.”

“Please,” Bella said through the phone as the silence went on too long, “I’m—I’m sorry I didn’t listen, you shared a lot of really personal things and I—I did listen, I really did, but I know it probably didn’t seem like it to you. I’m sorry I came off like that. Please, Rosalie, I need your help.”

“Do it,” Edward said to Rosalie.

Rosalie grimaced, opened her mouth to say something to Bella, and then with determination snatched the phone back from Edward and hung up on her.

“Call her yourself,” Rosalie said as she stuffed the phone back in her pocket, “I won’t play messenger for you.”

Edward scowled back at her, eyes burning, but before he could say another phone started ringing. It wasn’t Edward’s, as Rosalie had perhaps expected, but instead it was Carlisle’s.

He looked down at it in surprise. He didn’t even know Bella had his number.

They all turned to look at him as one. However, Carlisle had learned his lesson from Rosalie. Rather than give Edward the chance to ask for the phone, Carlisle promptly sprinted out of the house and into the pouring rain, managing to get just out of earshot before the call went to voicemail.

“Hello,” he said promptly and heard an audible sigh of relief on the other end.

“Thank god,” Bella said, “I thought I was actually going to have to come over.”

“Bella?” he asked, “Was there something you need to ask—me?”

He paused at the last word, wanting to say Rosalie, but unsure of how to confess that Rosalie had answered the phone in front of everyone. That she had hung up because Edward had been hanging on her every word.

There was a long, damning, silence on the other end.

“Bella?”

The silence stretched longer, not simply uncomfortable, but nerve wracking. Almost unthinkingly, he found himself turning and walking in the direction of town and Bella’s house. Something was very wrong, he could almost taste it in the rain, “Is this about the wedding?”

“No, no it’s not about the wedding,” Bella quickly confirmed, “It’s—”

She cut herself off, not finishing the sentence.

Finally, she asked, “Have you ever wanted kids?”

He blinked, blinked again, that was a bit of a non sequitur, “Children? Don’t I have six already?”

“Sure,” Bella said quickly, “I guess they count but—real kids, like Rosalie wanted.”

Oh, Carlisle thought slowly as he continued moving towards her house, was that it? Bella might not have intended to marry Edward, but maybe calling off the wedding had her thinking about the future she was leaving behind. The future she no longer had.

Perhaps she was finally wondering what it might be like to never have a child in her life.

That would explain why, of all of them, she would reach out to Rosalie.

“It’s—” he sighed, “You understand it’s not something we can do.”

“Biologically, vampires cannot have children, we’re a sterile race,” he explained, “And adopting a human child would mean turning them, with or without their consent once they became of age. Children aren’t a possibility in our world, Bella.”

He wasn’t sure what he expected her to say, but whatever it was, it was not her hasty, “Hypothetically, let’s say, hypothetically, kids are on the table. Have you, you and Esme even, ever wanted kids?”

He looked down at the phone in some concern and bewilderment, not sure why she was asking him of all people, but slowly answered, “Well, I believe I can speak for Esme well enough. Esme has always felt the loss of her human son greatly. She treats the others as our children, Edward especially, and she’s found comfort in that, but I believe she would have liked her son back at the very least.”

Perhaps not a child with Carlisle, she had never spoken about that for all that she had apparently dreamed of marrying him as a girl, but maybe just preserve the child she’d had. She may have married Carlisle, but sometimes, especially lately, he felt that what truly drove her was the son she found in Edward.

“As for myself,” he continued, “Well, I can’t say I’ve ever really thought about it.”

As a human he had expected that one day he would find a wife, that his son would inherit the parish from him as he had his own father, or if he’d had daughters then one of them would marry a man who would then inherit Carlisle’s position.

His life had been so… bleak, in many ways, that he hadn’t imagined getting married or having children. The idea of domestic bliss was so terribly foreign to him, it had only been him and his father for as long as he could remember.

Then Carlisle Cullen had died and become a monster.

By the time he had reconciled himself with his new life, found hope and faith in the world once again, he had accepted that children simply were not a possibility. It still amazed him sometimes that he’d managed to find a wife, Aro had always insisted that Carlisle’s diet would send any potential mate running for the hills and Carlisle hadn’t been able to disagree.

Bella said nothing to Carlisle’s statement.

It was a long pause, half of Forks crossed under his feet, when she asked, “Can you… think about it now?”

He frowned, “I’m sorry, Bella, but I’m really not the best person to ask. I’ve accepted it so long ago that it’s really not something I think about. You really would be better asking Rosalie—”

“No,” Bella quickly cut in, “No, this is a very important, completely hypothetical, question for you.”

He suddenly understood Edward’s many statements about how Bella’s mind was an unpredictable mystery to him.

“Humor me,” she insisted through the phone as he caught sight of her house. Her bedroom light window was on and he could see her silhouette outlined against the glass.

“Well,” he said, and rolled the idea around in his head. Children, his own children. Sometimes it felt like all he did was look after children between Edward and the rest of them.

He loved them dearly, but it often felt they only understood the value of human life as this strange, intangible, thing that they should care about. They followed his diet but discussed the casual murder of a seventeen-year-old girl at the dinner table. They treated their accidents, the times they ate people, as slip-ups or falling off the wagon. It was a form of gallows humor, a way to cope without drowning in guilt, but at the same time it felt so callous and he wondered if any of them truly understood what they were doing here.

Having another child on top of all of that?

When Edward alone had caused them so much grief in the past year?

He couldn’t even imagine it.

At the same time, there was a vague, distant image of himself with a child, reading a story. It was too fuzzy to tell if the child was human, vampire, or something else. Similarly, their features and gender were indistinct, except that perhaps they were blonde.

It was… a nice thought, a nice, quiet, wish.

“I suppose it might be nice,” he finally said, “For all that it’s an impossible dream.”

He stooped just as he came into view of her window, close enough for her to be able to make him out against the tree line. He saw her sigh, press her face against the glass, and stare dully at her reflection.

Then, narrowing her eyes, she must have caught sight of him through the rain. She squinted, leaned close to the glass and finally asked, “Tell me that’s you right now and not Edward.”

“Edward?” Carlisle asked, before catching himself and noting, “Yes, it’s me, you sounded—I thought I should drop by.”

Bella breathed out a sigh of relief and, before he could say anything, began opening her window.

“You really don’t need to—”

“Nope, it’s probably better this way anyway, come on up,” Bella said, motioning for him to come in, not seeming to mind the pouring rain now coming into her bedroom.

“Bella, I’m not entering your room, and I am especially not entering your room through a window in the middle of the night,” the very idea of it made him feel somehow scandalized, as if he were a voyeur or sexual predator.

Bella just looked through the window, down at him dully, and asked slowly, “Can you believe that’s the first time someone’s said that to me?”

“Yes?” he asked slowly, because who else would ever have cause to say such a thing to her?

“Close the window,” Carlisle insisted, “You’re going to get soaked.”

“Nope,” Bella said, “I’m not closing it until you come up here.”

“Bella, you’ll get sick,” Carlisle insisted, but she didn’t budge.

“You’ll get me sick if you don’t get your ass up here,” Bella insisted.

“I don’t think that’s how that works,” Carlisle said slowly, and before she could interrupt added, “And why do you want to talk to me so badly anyway? Shouldn’t you—shouldn’t you talk to Edward?”

Perhaps she, like Carlisle, felt as if she’d said enough to Edward. She had tried for two weeks to tell him no, he hadn’t listened, and now there was nothing left to say. Still, what would she have to ask Carlisle?

Perhaps about turning but then why hadn’t she simply said as much on the phone?

Bella laughed, she threw her head back and laughed, “Oh, I—I don’t think talking to Edward right now would be a very good idea.”

She then stuck her head out the window, looked down at him, and noted, “If you don’t come up, then I’ll have to come down, which means you’re going to have to catch me because I am not waking up Charlie.”

She couldn’t be serious.

She moved towards the window, looking down at the ground, then him across the yard, speculatively.

Oh god, she was serious.

Before he could think twice, he vaulted across her yard, up her house, and through her window closing it shut behind him.

He turned to glare at her, “Don’t ever throw yourself out your window.”

She didn’t even seem to notice though, instead, she reached over to her desk and picked up a pile of objects and shoved them into his hands. He looked down at them in confusion, only to become more confused, “These are pregnancy tests.”

He inspected them individually, and yes, they were all generic pregnancy tests you could buy from any convenience store. Only, each had been used and featured a plus sign.

“So,” Bella said slowly, “Turns out, you can get someone pregnant, not sterile at all, and… Congratulations, you’re going to be a dad.”

His mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. He quickly looked through each of the sticks, taking in her lingering scent and noting the damning plus sign on each and every one.

As if to provide him with further, damning proof, she lifted her shirt slightly to reveal a noticeable baby bump.

“Also, vampire pregnancies are terrifying and I need some serious help and Edward is not going to approve and I thought about it all day and I think I should keep the baby unless you and Esme really want a baby to raise or something and then I guess it’s your baby and I can be the aunt though I don’t know it might be nice to have a kid but ye gods this is soon but I really mean that I’m keeping the baby as in having the baby.”

She didn’t even take a breath, only afterwards did she take in a single, large, gulp of air.

Then, as he continued staring in dumbfounded horror, she asked, “Thoughts?”


	8. The Mostly Virgin Bella

To Bella, it undoubtedly seemed as if Carlisle processed what she said in no time at all. This was because she was human, Carlisle’s mind was made to process information on a much faster scale than a human’s was ever capable of. That it took Carlisle a full thirty seconds, in which he sat down on her bed to stare numbly at the overwhelming pile of pregnancy tests, meant that a human Carlisle would have been sitting there dead eyed for well over thirty minutes.

Even then, the first words out of his mouth were, “Bella, I—Vampires are sterile, trust me, we cannot have children.”

Bella sat down on the bed next to him, shoulder brushing his, so that she could stare moodily out the window with him. It was a motion of companionship, of friendship, and would have perhaps been a welcome one had she not just told him she was pregnant and congratulations, Carlisle, you’re the father.

At her damning silence he added, “Bella, I know dozens of vampires, many happily married to someone of the opposite sex, many who desperately wished for a child, and not one of them has had children.”

Again, she said nothing.

“I have known vampires who have walked the earth for five-thousand years,” Carlisle continued, “And they do not have children themselves nor have they ever mentioned a vampire who has ever had children.”

“Well,” Bella drawled, “Given my history of torrid affairs and Edward’s monk-like dedication to abstinence: it’s either you or I’m the next Virgin Mary.”

Carlisle choked on his own breath, wheezing on nothing. Unfortunately, Bella’s eyes widened in fearful realization. She slowly turned to look at him, an idea clearly just having been made clear in her mind.

“Holy shit,” Bella said slowly, “I—Carlisle, what if I’m actually the Virgin Mary?”

She kept staring at him, waiting for him to contradict her, but he somehow couldn’t find the words to. Carlisle felt as if he was trapped between two impossible explanations. On the one hand, vampires could not have children and he’d never heard of a vampire ever having children. On the other hand, this couldn’t possibly be immaculate conception with a virgin who was not quite a virgin.

One of these answers had to be true.

It felt very much as if Carlisle had been told to pick which excruciating poison would be used to kill him.

“Look, I’m not into the whole religion thing—” Bella started, putting sarcastic air-quotes around ‘religion’ as if the very word offended her, then paused, “I—If angels or God were a thing, I mean like an undeniable vampire type thing, you’d tell me, right?”

She scoffed, looking wild and desperate, even more so than when she’d shoved the pregnancy tests in his hands, “I mean, Edward wouldn’t tell me, but Edward barely tells me anything. He couldn’t even tell me he was a vampire, he made me guess, guess! I can’t believe I actually managed to guess that one right.”

Her face, if possible, grew paler as the implications kept sinking further and further in, “I mean, I know you’re a Christian and all and I always thought that was kind of super weird what with the whole vampire thing, but… I just figured you were normal religious. Not, you know, ‘I know for certain that angels are real, and I just played baseball with St. Peter’ kind of religious.”

Carlisle opened his mouth, closed it, and barely managed to get out, “I believe what I do on faith alone. I am not a prophet. I have spoken neither with God, angels, nor saints.”

“Oh,” Bella said for a moment, paused, and looked down at her stomach, poking at it with some wariness, “Well, was there anything in the Bible about Jesus growing crazy fast in the womb?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?” Bella asked, “Because let’s face it, this is just the sort of weird shit that would happen to me.”

Carlisle very dearly wished he could disagree.

“Do we know when the angels are supposed to show up and say ‘Congratulations, it’s a boy’?” Bella asked, still poking at her stomach, “Because it’s been a few weeks now and I feel like they kind of missed their cue…”

She trailed off, continued to stare fearfully at Carlisle, then blurted out, “Seriously, Carlisle, am I giving birth to the Messiah 2.0 or is this a half-vampire baby?”

He held up his hands, stood, and began pacing in her entirely too cramped bedroom, “Let me think, please.”

He wanted to ask if she was absolutely certain there was no one else, that there couldn’t have been someone else, except he knew there hadn’t been. Bella didn’t live that kind of life, as she said the only other would have been Edward and he—

He stopped in front of her, motioned to her shirt, “May I?”

She lifted it without a word and was quite noticeably pregnant. Far too pregnant at that, it had only been two weeks but Bella was looking much further along. With shaking hands, he felt her stomach and—

It was solid, too solid, firm, and cold.

Then against his hand, he felt the slightest nudge from the other side of her womb.

He quickly drew his hand back.

“Maybe—” Bella said slowly, “Maybe it’s just that vampires together are sterile. Maybe—”

“The Denali routinely sleep with human men,” Carlisle said swiftly, “Their—the original coven head desperately wanted a child, it never happened.”

And the coven had nearly been destroyed by the desperate madness she had embarked on. If natural children were possible for vampires, Carlisle thought with some despair, then immortal children would never be made.

“What about men?” Bella asked, “I mean, what if it’s just the women who are sterile? I mean, they don’t menstruate, right? A man might be able to get a human woman pregnant, right?”

He opened his mouth, about to interject that he hardly thought his sperm could survive not only three-hundred years but also the venom that had originally transformed him, but Bella just gave him a look.

“Carlisle, it’s either you or we’re back to Jesus.”

“I suppose,” he said with a thick swallow, “I suppose it could, hypothetically, be possible.”

He forced his eyes closed, forced himself to breathe out and look at this rationally, remove himself from the situation. He looked at her carefully, “Bella, if this is true… are you sure you want to have this child?”

She blinked at him, blinked again, and cupped her hand protectively over her stomach. “You don’t want it?”

He shook his head desperately, “No, no that’s not—I can’t say I ever considered having a child but that’s not what I meant. If you want this child, Bella, then I will do everything I can to ensure your and its safety. If you do not want this child—”

“I want him,” Bella said, hand tightening on her stomach protectively, “I never thought about having kids either, and when I was with Edward, well, it was off the table just like you said. But—I want him.”

“Bella, I do not know if you can have this child,” Carlisle said slowly.

He motioned to her stomach, unable to help the fear rising in his voice, “Even after three-hundred years, after so much study into medicine, I know so little about vampire anatomy. I have no idea how we digest blood, why newborn vampires are so much stronger, why animal blood tastes at all different from a human’s. I don’t know how we move, how our skin scars and heals, what our skin is even made of. Until two seconds ago I had no idea a vampire could get someone pregnant.”

He looked into her eyes, willing her to see what he saw, “Bella, I have no idea how the venom changed my DNA, how it changed that of my sperm. Your child could be fully human, I suspect it’s not, and I have no idea what that means. Pregnancy is very delicate, your body is designed to reject malformed fetuses, it is very likely you will miscarry.”

“And, if you do not miscarry,” he frowned down at her stomach again, “Then given the fetus’ rate of growth, assuming I’m the father and it’s only been two weeks, then this pregnancy will be anything but safe.”

“When have I ever played it safe?” she tried to joke.

“Bella,” he chastised her, “This is serious. Think about this very carefully.”

She nodded, flushing as she took in his words, and then moved her head to stare back out the window. It only took her a second, and by the determined tilt in her chin, the fire in her eyes, and the way her hand rested on her stomach he already knew her answer, “I’m keeping the baby.”

The baby.

His baby.

It suddenly hit him with full force. This wasn’t just some abstract half-human child, already enough to floor Carlisle and turn his world upside down, but his own flesh and blood created out of—Had it been an act of love or only a strange afternoon in a hot tub?

Whatever it had been, it was no longer simply a lost day in time, an odd connection between the two unlikeliest of souls, but a real physical being. He was going to have a daughter or a son, with Bella Swan, who until yesterday had been Edward’s fiancée.

He needed to sit down.

No, there was no time for that.

He looked at Bella and the magnitude of what was happening hit him again.

If she didn’t miscarry, if the fetus kept growing the way it was, it could rupture her internal organs and swiftly kill her. There was a very large chance that Bella wouldn’t survive this pregnancy, at least, she wouldn’t survive it human.

More, her father was bound to notice. Perhaps, if it had been a human child, then she simply could have passed it off as Edward’s son. Charlie might be disappointed, but these things happened. However, it wasn’t growing like a human child and Charlie, the entire town, would soon notice.

Before, the plan was that Bella would go off to college in a few months, that she’d disappear slowly on the other side of the country where her father the police officer couldn’t start searching for clues. It’d be a quiet, unremarkable, thing.

Suddenly, they were out of time.

“Bella,” he said, “I need you to write a note to your father.”

“A note?” Bella asked in confusion, “Is—Is that how I should tell him?”

Carlisle just gave her a look, not quite able to believe his ears, but by the look on her face she had no idea what he was thinking. Bella honestly thought she could tell her father that she was pregnant with Edward’s vampire father’s child or else was the Virgin Mary.

“Bella,” he said slowly, “You can’t tell your father.”

“Well, that’s great and all,” Bella said just as slowly, as if he were the idiot, “But I think there’s a few things he’s bound to notice.”

Carlisle gently took her hands in his, trying to find a way to be compassionate while still get across what he needed to, “Bella, I’m not sure you’ll survive this pregnancy human, and even if you did… On becoming a vampire, you must lose contact with every single person you knew as a human, including your family.”

“Wait, what?” Bella asked, eyes wide and fearful, “You mean, I can’t even email or call—”

“If you email, he might come looking for you,” Carlisle said, “If you call, he won’t recognize your voice. If he thinks you’re alive he will want to see you. If you contact him after you change, if he thinks you’re alive, he’ll find out and then you will either have to kill him or turn him with or without his consent.”

He squeezed her hand gently, “Just as, when Edward told you our secret, you were doomed to become one of us with or without your consent.”

He could see the realization strike her then. He knew she had never thought of it that way, of just what Edward’s reluctance to tell her had really meant, and that perhaps Bella putting it together had not been such a good thing.

At least she wanted to become a vampire, because the truth of the matter was that she had no choice.

“Not a suicide note,” Bella said with quiet horror, “Please, I’ve caused him so much grief already. Not a suicide note.”

“No,” Carlisle assured her, “No, just tell him you’re going to Port Angeles to clear your head. I, or someone else, will drive your car there and crash it into a river.”

Her face crumpled, she bent over, and through muffled tears she said, “This might actually kill him. I’ve—I’ve been such a shit daughter. The James thing, then Edward in Italy… I thought we might actually have a chance to fix things, we had a really good day yesterday even with—well—everything—I can’t do this to him!”

“You have to,” Carlisle said, “Bella, I am so sorry, you have no idea how sorry I am.”

She shook her head, “No, I knew, I mean, Edward told me. We talked about how I’d fake my death sometimes, he told me I’d have to fake it, kept asking me if I was sure I wanted to be a vampire since I’d have to do that, I just—I don’t know, I thought maybe we could email for a while, I could make it gentler, you know? It didn’t have to be now…”

She shuddered, gripped her own arms tightly, and after a deep breath asked, “If I’m dying today then what happens next?”  
  


“You’ll have to come live with us,” Carlisle said, “You’ll probably need to stay close by so I can—”

Monitor your health? Discover the joys of half-vampire children together? Anticipate the worst and try to prepare for it as best he could?

“Yeah, I kind of have been throwing up everything all day,” Bella said with a weak smile, “I think that’s supposed to be normal?”

Her smile disappeared then, and she asked the question Carlisle should have asked himself in the beginning but had been too distracted to even think of.

“What are we going to tell everyone?”

Well.

Rosalie and Emmett had no idea this had even happened. Carlisle was hoping he’d either have a chance to get Rosalie alone or else that she would somehow never have to find out. There was no chance of that now.

What would he say?

What could he possibly say?

And that wasn’t even getting to Alice, Japser, and—

And Edward and Esme.

He felt as if the wind was knocked out of him and he found himself sitting on the bed with Bella again.

Bella weakly patted his arm consolingly, he barely felt it.

“Well, since you’re probably—breaking the news to Charlie and attending my funeral,” Bella said weakly, trying to put on a brave face in the face of the end of her human life, “I guess I can break the news to everyone else. If, I don’t know, you think that’s better.”

He smiled weakly in turn, “I don’t know if better’s the term I’d use.”

“What have they got to be upset about?” Bella suddenly asked, face flushed and eyes bright with indignation, “Edward and Esme asked us to do this. I mean, technically, this was always possible. Man sleeps with woman, woman gets pregnant, news at eleven. Besides, it’s not like I didn’t give Edward the opportunity to get in there himself.”

Bella held out her right hand, pointed to the finger that until yesterday had featured a wedding band, “If he liked it so much, then he should have put a ring on it!”

Carlisle actually laughed, “Well, Bella, that was the problem. He tried.”

“I meant—” Bella stopped, flushed, and then put her head in her hand, “Beyoncé, my queen, you have failed me.”

He took her arm in his and helped her to her feet, “Together, we’ll do it together.”

“Walk arm and arm into Hell?” Bella asked as she stood, moving to the desk to swiftly write the note that would spell out the excuse of her death to her father, “I like it, Dr. Cullen.”

“We’ve slept together, Bella,” Carlisle reminded her gently, “We’re apparently having a child together. I think we’ve moved far past Dr. Cullen.”

“I don’t know,” Bella said musingly, “It makes you sound very distinguished.”

“I feel anything but distinguished these days,” Carlisle said, trying and failing to smile, but she didn’t seem to notice.

Instead, she was hesitating over the piece of notebook paper. Scrawled in unremarkable handwriting, neither too rushed nor too thoughtful, were the words, “Heading to Port Angeles to clear my head, get away from Edward, I just need a little time to think. Love you, Dad. Be home by six, there’s leftover lasagna in the fridge.”

With a grimace she scrawled, “Love, Bella” at the bottom.

“That’s—that’s the last lasagna he’s ever going to have from me,” Bella said, choking on her tears and a laugh, “After this it’s—It’ll be fish fry forever, I mean, unless Sue cooks for him. I hope she cooks for him.”

“He’ll always love you, Bella,” Carlisle assured her, “And in time he’ll be able to move on.”

“Will he?” Bella asked, “I suppose, eventually, he moved on from Renee but… It won’t be like I never existed. And he’ll have all my photographs.”

When Edward left, Carlisle suddenly remembered, Bella said he had taken all the photographs with him. There was something to be said for that, but whatever it was, Carlisle couldn’t find the words.

“Let me just put this downstairs and—” Bella stopped, looked around her room one last time, “And I guess I can’t take anything with me, can I?”

No, if she took anything, anything that made this look planned then Charlie might start looking for a body. As it was, Carlisle could only hope that the river was enough, that it and perhaps a few loose articles of clothing could convince Charlie Swan that his daughter was dead.

“Alright let’s—” Bella said only for Carlisle to put a hand on her shoulder and stop her.

“What’s the problem?” Bella asked.

As if his body had a will of its own, he found himself answering, “Edward’s here.”

He hadn’t been in eavesdropping distance, he’d only just arrived, but nevertheless Edward was now at the edge of the woods and staring up at Bella’s window. Gone was the blank-eyed stare from the wedding, replaced by something darker and far more desperate.

“Oh, Edward,” Bella said slowly, color draining from her face as she moved towards the window.

On catching Bella’s eye, mouthed a single, desperate, prayer, “Bella.”

“Oh, Edward,” Bella repeated, face crumpling with grief, “Why are you doing this? Why can’t you just—”

Bella opened the window, never minding the rain, and shouted through the torrential downpour, “Let go, Edward! It’s over!”

“It’s not over!” he cried back, just audible to the human ear over the rain, loud enough that he might wake Charlie Swan up.

“I barfed and ran out on the wedding,” Bella said, rain now mixing with tears down her face, “If that’s not over then I don’t know what is!”

He moved towards the house, began climbing up the siding, up towards her window, “I love you, Bella! I know you don’t believe me, but I love you! Without you, my life is an empty black pit, a world with no sun. Without you, there’s nothing. Please, believe me!”

  
Carlisle suddenly felt as if he was in a scene he didn’t belong.

Even though he had come to Bella to discuss, apparently, the child they were having together it once again felt like he’d stepped into a story that belonged solely to Bella, Edward, and young tragic love.

Edward knew Carlisle was here, certainly, but it apparently didn’t bother him at all to have Carlisle witness this scene.

“Stop it, Edward!” Bella cried out, swatting at the air beneath her window, as if that might keep Edward out, “You’re—We’re done, it’s over, you can’t sneak into my room anymore!”

He couldn’t what? Carlisle poked his head out the window to stare dumbfounded at Edward. Sure enough, his movements seemed more certain than they should even with a vampire’s grace, as if he had taken this path many times before.

Edward had always had a habit of disappearing at night. Carlisle had just thought he went out into the woods, that’s what he always used to do, it was what Carlisle had assumed he was doing. Apparently though, judging from the way Bella was acting, at least some of those nights had been spent climbing through Bella’s bedroom window.

“I’m serious!” Bella cried out, “Please, don’t—”

Edward pulled himself up to the windowsill only to be met with Carlisle slamming the glass down in his face. Carlisle offered Edward a pleasant smile and said in a voice that was perfectly audible to both Edward and Bella, “Go home, Edward.”

“Carlisle,” Edward said slowly, “Open the window.”

“She told you to go home,” Carlisle repeated, “Go home and wait.”

“I have a right to speak to my wife,” Edward said through gritted teeth.

“You’re not married,” Carlisle reminded him.

That was the wrong thing to say. Edward’s eyes flashed, he placed his hands against the glass, pressed in ever so slightly, watching as cracks appeared in its surface.

“You told me to talk to her,” Edward hissed, “Well, I’m here to talk to her, Carlisle.”

“Edward,” Bella whispered, seeming paralyzed by feeling, and then her eyes flashed in turn. She pushed Carlisle out of the way, Carlisle obligingly stepping aside, and flung open the window again.

She met Edward’s glare unflinchingly with one of her own, “Edward, I’m pregnant, Carlisle’s the father, and it’s all your fault.”

Edward looked as if he’d been shot. His eyes went wide, his mouth opened, he wobbled on his perch, recoiled, and then lost his grip and fell off the house to the ground several feet below. There, he lay on the ground, looking for all the world like a corpse, dark eyes open and unblinking.

Quietly, cautiously, Bella closed the window. She and Carlisle stared at the glass and watched as the fractures Edward had left behind spread then shattered. They stared as the shards of glass fell to the floor and the wind and rain began howling in.

Numbly, Bella asked, “If I disappear tomorrow, will this make it look like Edward kidnapped me?”

Carlisle said nothing. He simply stared at the window and imagined the headlines, Edward’s face making national news, and the Cullen’s future of living in a cave for twenty years until the tragic story of Edward Cullen kidnapping and murdering his runaway bride faded into legend.

“Well,” Bella said eyeing the glass, “We could say that a tree did it or that I did it in a fit of rage at losing Edward.”

Carlisle continued to say nothing.

Bella went into her closet and retrieved what looked as if it had once been a car stereo, “I’ll take care of this, I’ll meet you tomorrow.”

When Carlisle slowly crept out of what was left of the window, he tried not to wince at the sound of shattering glass as Bella undoubtedly smashed her vanity, the sound of photo albums, books, and whatever Bella could get her hand on being thrown out the window (some hitting Edward), or her too convincing sobs that must have, in some way, been fueled by her grief of the world she was leaving behind.

He tried not to notice as Charlie Swan finally woke up, entered his daughter’s room, only to enter a warzone.

All Carlisle did was pick up the unresponsive Edward, throw him over his shoulder, and quickly make his way out of sight.


	9. Carlisle's Decision

The rest were waiting on the doorstep before Carlisle and Edward could even step inside. They watched with wide, golden, eyes as Edward and Carlisle shuffled past them, looking for all the world like a pair of drowned cats.

“Well?” Emmett prompted when neither Carlisle nor Edward gave their audience any mind.

On stepping out of the rain, Edward seemed to have regained something of himself, Carlisle could see the numb daze he’d been in leaving and fathomless rage taking its place. His shoulders tensed; his feet pressed into the wooden floor so hard they left tiny fissures as he made his way to the living room.

Carlisle didn’t take his eyes off him, just carefully removed his own shoes, made for the nearby linen closet, and grabbed a towel to wipe himself off.

“What’d she say?” Emmett prompted again, Rosalie not even bothering to jab him in the ribs, as she looked just as curious as the rest of them.

For the rest of them, Carlisle thought with some dull amusement, it was still about the wedding. It was still about the idea that somehow Edward and Bella had fallen apart without any of them noticing.

Edward stopped in the middle of the hallway, still facing away from them, and let out a choked and bitter laugh.

“What did she say?” he echoed mockingly.

He turned back to face them, his eyes immediately locking on Carlisle, “You’ve murdered her.”

Edward held out his arms, wide open, and said in dazed wonder, “I trusted you more than anyone in the world. I trusted you like the father I thought you were and then you murdered her. Bella Swan, the most precious thing in this world to have ever existed, is now gone thanks to you.”

“What?” Rosalie gaped in dumb horror.

She wasn’t the only one. Esme let out a gasp of horror, Jasper and Emmett looked visibly stricken. As one they turned to look at Alice who only shook her head in numb horror, she hadn’t seen this either.

“She’s not dead,” Carlisle explained swiftly, “Bella’s very much alive—”

“For now,” Edward interjected, “You might as well have killed her. I might as well have killed her if it was coming to this anyway. I put in all that effort, all of that agony, and look what you do—”

“Do you really believe that?” Carlisle asked and Edward stopped, his face darkened, and his scowl deepened as he processed what he’d just said.

That, had he known that Bella could become pregnant, that Carlisle would one day impregnate her, then he wouldn’t have tried to resist her blood. He would have eaten her, had he known this would happen. But he couldn’t mean that. They were just words spoken in horror and anger, he had to realize what he’d just said, and if he didn’t, he certainly heard it in Carlisle’s thoughts now.

Carlisle kept waiting, staring at Edward in horrified desperation, but Edward didn’t take the words back.

“You’ve ruined her,” Edward said instead, shaking his head at Carlisle as if in wonder, “Did you know she wanted to go to college?”

Edward looked away from Carlisle and at the rest of them for a moment, then when he looked back to Carlisle, a fire was burning in his eyes, “She may not have known it, may not have been ready to admit it, but she wanted a human life! And all she wanted was this one, simple, thing that I thought I could entrust to you. And now she’s going to die.”

“She may not die,” Carlisle returned coldly, “I will do everything in my power—"

“But she won’t survive this human,” Edward said mockingly, “You’ve been thinking it the whole way here. Bella’s human life is over, it’s time to fake her death for Charlie because there’s no going back, her precious human existence is over before it could even begin.”

And Carlisle felt something in him, that long tried and true thread of patience he’d always had, finally snap.

“It was already over!” Carlisle shouted, throwing his towel to the ground, “She chose this life, Edward, with or without you! She has chosen to become a vampire, knows the truth, and the Volturi have given her a time limit! Did you honestly think she wouldn’t be turned? Did you really think that you could have another twenty, ten, or even four years?!”

“Well now we’ll never know!” Edward shouted back, “Because you just had to stick your fucking dick in it!”

“Hold up!”

Suddenly, Emmett was standing in between them, holding out his hands as if to keep them from going for each other’s throats. He warily looked between them both, licking his lips awkwardly, and looking desperately at Rosalie for some hint of what was going on. Rosalie looked back at him as if that was the dumbest thing she’d ever seen him do.

“Hold it,” Emmett repeated, slower and with more emphasis, “Now, I know Rose and I took a little honeymoon before Edward and Bella could steal the show with their gooey, puppy, love. I know that we were kind of MIA for a few weeks there, but what the fuck even happened while we were gone?!”

He motioned desperately to Edward then to Carlisle, “Bella and Edward’s wedding is off, Bella’s calling Rosalie and Carlisle when I’m pretty damn sure she didn’t even have their numbers, and now Carlisle’s sticking his dick in—What did you stick your dick in?!”

Carlisle looked away, unable to meet that stare head on, and he was sure if he was human his face would be unbearably red.

“You’ll have to ask Carlisle,” Edward sneered.

So, that was how it was going to be, Carlisle thought to himself. Had Edward forgotten already just why this had happened in the first place? Why any of this had happened in the first place? Well, if Edward could be crass, then so could Carlisle.

“Edward pimped out his fiancée,” Carlisle said evenly, as if it was the easiest thing in the world.

Edward stumbled backwards as if he had been slapped across the face.

“Edward what?” Rosalie asked, walking over towards Emmett to stand between Carlisle and Edward.

“Carlisle!” Esme shouted, “That’s not—”

“Edward came to me, about a month ago now, and told me that what Bella wanted more than anything in the world was to experience sex as a human,” Carlisle continued as if none of them had spoken, “Only, he knew that he couldn’t provide that for her, so he came to me instead and he begged. Without this, he said, they would never get married and she would demand to be turned. And we certainly couldn’t have that.”

“And you said yes?!” Rosalie asked, as Carlisle had known she would, but this wasn’t about Rosalie right now. Carlisle only had eyes for flinching Edward, too ashamed to even face his own actions.

“He asked my permission, Esme’s, and then left Bella on our doorstep as if her opinion didn’t matter in the least. Bella decided then and there that she did not wish to get married but, strangely enough, that she did want to have sex as a human,” Carlisle continued, and then with a thin smile he noted, “As Bella put it: Man sleeps with woman, woman gets pregnant, it’s not a new story, Edward.”

Carlisle finished by giving Edward a dull look, “Don’t pretend you played no part in this travesty.”

“Bella’s pregnant,” Rosalie whispered in shock, “Bella’s pregnant with—with Carlisle’s child?!”

“Holy shit,” Emmet said, he turned to look at Jasper, “You know about this buddy?!”

Jasper awkwardly paused, clearly not having expected to be put on the spot. Generally, in most family disputes, Jasper tended to take the role of an observer and rarely made his opinion known.

He glanced at Edward, then Carlisle, and finally back to Emmett, “The sex, yes, the pregnancy… that’s very new.”

“And you?” Emmett turned to Alice, gesturing wildly for some explanation, “This wasn’t anywhere on your radar?”

“I told you,” Alice snapped, “I told you I can’t see anything about Bella right now! I told you—”

She cut herself off in horror, she looked over towards Jasper, her face alight with horrified understanding, “It must be the baby. It’s like the wolves, I can’t see it, I can’t see Bella while she’s carrying it—”

“Carlisle,” Esme said, looking at him as if she didn’t recognize him, “Why are you being so cruel?”

Cruel, was it cruel? Perhaps it wasn’t as patient as he normally would have been. Perhaps, for once, he wasn’t letting Edward say whatever he felt like, do whatever he felt like, and waiting for him to calm down before he said a word. Perhaps finally, after a hundred years, Carlisle had reached some internal limit he didn’t even know he had, but he wouldn’t call it cruel.

He was simply done.

“It is cruel,” Edward spat in response to Carlisle’s thoughts, “Even now, there still may be time to save her, and you’ve flat out refused. You have signed her death warrant in every means imaginable.”

“I am not performing an abortion against her will,” Carlisle said flatly.

“That thing is three times the size it should be,” Edward hissed out, “That thing isn’t even human and—”

“I asked and she made her opinion very clear,” Carlisle interjected, “So long as she wishes to keep the child, even if it is medically unsafe for her to do so, she will keep it. And no one in this house, not me, not you, will attempt otherwise.”

“You think you can stop me?” Edward spat.

“I think you didn’t get that far in medical school,” Carlisle responded easily, “I know you’ve never performed an operation before and I highly doubt you could complete one without eating her yourself. So, go on, Edward, tell me all about how you’re going to get the child out with a coat hanger in a back alley.”

“Carlisle!” Esme shouted, rushing to Edward’s side, gripping his arm in an attempt to comfort him. Edward barely even seemed to notice.

Instead, his eyes moved to Alice, he stepped towards her, “Alice, please, tell him how this ends. Tell him—”

Alice held up her hands in defense, “Edward, I—I really don’t know.”

She looked around at them desperately, “Bella’s—I haven’t seen her in weeks, she’s just gone, I just—”

“But you know how it ends,” Edward insisted, “You can see that much, can’t you?”

Alice nodded slowly, grimly, “Either Bella… dies, or she becomes a vampire. But Edward, it’s always been like—”

“You see,” Edward said, “Either she dies or she’s going to end up wishing she was dead. Carlisle, just let me talk to her let me—”

“Like you talked to her about the wedding?” Carlisle asked in disbelief, “Like you talked to her about sex? And what if she says no after this talk, are you going to come to me and insist I do it anyway?”

“If she wants children,” Edward hissed, “There are other ways to get them. She could—”

“You know that’s not true,” Carlisle said.

First, as far as natural pregnancies went, Carlisle had no doubt that this pregnancy would be damaging enough that even if, by some miracle, Bella came out of it fully human she would likely never be able to conceive a second child. Second, given what the Cullens were, what Bella would become, there was no place for a human child in that.

“Maybe we should talk about this!” Esme shouted.

As one they all turned to look at her, stunned by her unusual outburst, but Esme held her ground and said slowly, “This—This affects all of us, not just Bella, and maybe we should talk about this.”

“Talk about it?” Rosalie asked, “What is there to even talk about? That Carlisle apparently slept with Bella Swan and you gave him the go ahead? Are we talking about that?”

“No, we should talk about—” Esme paused, looked at Edward, and then finished her sentence, “The baby.”

With that she ushered Edward into the living room, the rest of them following afterwards and settling into the same positions they’d been in earlier that night.

Esme started once she had sat down, “I’ll start, I suppose…” she breathed out, “Carlisle, I cannot believe you did this, any of this and I feel like I don’t even know you anymore. I gave you permission to help give Edward and Bella a gift, not to tear them apart, and certainly not—”

“And imagine if I really had taken the whole honeymoon like you wanted,” Carlisle couldn’t help but say, which of course, was the entirely wrong thing to say as Esme looked at him with utter devastation.

“Um,” Emmett started in, “I hate to ask this but, uh, are we sure Bella’s pregnant and that it’s Carlisle’s kid? Because, no offense, but that’s kind of—insane.”

“We’re sure,” Carlisle said dully, “It’s either that or Bella’s the Virgin Mary.”

Emmett opened his mouth, closed it, then asked, “And we’re sure about that?”

“Regardless,” Esme interjected, sending Emmett a chiding look, “Regardless, given my own experiences… Edward should have a chance to talk to Bella, they should have time to remember what they mean to each other, but if she wants her child then she has every right to keep it.”

“It’s not like your son, Esme,” Edward said, squeezing her hand tenderly, looking utterly heartbroken at her words, “It’s nothing like that. That thing inside her, it’s not a human baby, it’s—”

Esme squeezed Edward’s hand gently back, her expression softening in turn, “But does she know that Edward?”

“Well, I guess I’ll go next,” Rosalie said, looking between Edward, Carlisle, and Esme in judgement, “You all disgust me. I can’t believe any of you did this and I’m ashamed to be in the same house as you. I can’t say I’m surprised at Edward, this is something he would do, but I certainly expected better from you, Carlisle.”

She sent Carlisle a particularly withering glare that he probably did deserve.

She then continued, “Right, that said, since we’re here now and I guess we’re offering opinions, then obviously Bella keeps the child. If it was up to me, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion, because this baby apparently doesn’t even have anything to do with Edward. The only reason he’s even remotely involved in this, at all, is because he can’t admit that he’s a jackass who deserved to be dumped by his human bride at the altar. And if he tries anything, and I mean anything, I’ll rip off his limbs and hang them over a mantlepiece for the next century.”

She smiled primly at all of them, “Right, so, discussion’s over.”

“The discussion’s not over,” Alice interjected, “In case anyone hasn’t noticed, I’m blind. If she keeps this thing… I can’t tell you anything. I can’t tell you if she’s going to live, if the child’s going to live, and then if the child does live it will be like living with a wolf for the rest of our lives. The Volturi could decide to come tomorrow and I would have no idea. I—I love Bella, she’s my best friend and been a sister for years now but keeping it would put us in so much danger. Carlisle, it’s not just about her.”

“It’s also not about you,” Rosalie noted, “So you can’t see the future. Guess what? The rest of us can’t either. Welcome to the real world, Alice, somehow the rest of us get by just fine.”

“And where would we be without my visions?” Alice snapped back, “How many decisions have we made based on what I could see? How many times would Bella have died already without me?”

“That’s funny, I seem to remember being around for several decades getting on just fine without you and your visions,” Rosalie mused, as if she was truly thinking on her words, “In fact, I remember, shock of all shocks, actually being able to pick out my own wardrobe. Hey, Carlisle, remember when you actually went shopping for your own clothes? Remember when you didn’t parade around town looking like a Calvin Klein model every day of the week?”

Carlisle felt like they were getting dangerously off topic. Well, no, it was as if in this one discussion years’ worth of resentments were finally boiling over and as one came out the rest simply followed.

“Rosalie,” Jasper insisted from across the room, “I think that’s enough.”

“And hey,” Rosalie continued, “Has anyone noticed that, despite Alice’s all-powerful visions, we’re still in this mess? Not even just in this mess, by the way, but in any of the messes we’ve ever been in since Bella crash landed in our lives. Remember that great baseball game? Remember the time Alice told us Bella killed herself then, woops, guess we were wrong about that one. How dare you, Rosalie, have the guts to actually call Edward and tell him the love of his life was dead.”

Rosalie gave Alice a pointed look, “The way I see it, maybe not relying on Alice’s flakey visions so much might actually be a good thing. We might actually have to think for ourselves for once in our lives.”

“Rosalie,” Jasper hissed, “This is not Alice’s fault.”

He then looked over to Carlisle, not wasting time convincing the others of anything, “And she has a right to be scared.”

“I have never heard of vampires getting anyone pregnant, other humans or each other,” Jasper said, “This is new territory not simply for us but for the world at large. It’s not simply Bella that’s at risk. We are already on thin ice with the Volturi, we saw that they’ll take almost any excuse to murder us all, and we know they will come to check and see if Bella is turned. If there is a child with us, one that looks even remotely like an immortal child, what do you think they will do?”

“And what if it is an immortal child?” Jasper continued darkly, “What if it comes out and it never grows up? What if it has no human intelligence at all? We have no idea what this thing will even be and why should we allow ourselves to be the guinea pigs who find out? Why should we put Bella through all this suffering when, one day, we will very likely have to murder it anyway?”

“And what if it isn’t?” Rosalie asked, “Bella should decide if it’s worth the risk—”

“Bella doesn’t even know what a vampire is,” Jasper scoffed, “Edward’s been so busy giving her the censored, pleasant, version that she barely understands what she will become. You try explaining an immortal child to her and see if she understands what it means.”

“Enough!” Edward slammed his hand down on the armrest and looked across at Carlisle, “Enough, we all know that Carlisle’s is the only opinion that matters here. Carlisle, please, see reason. I’ll forgive you for—for everything—just save her while you still can.”

His was the only opinion that mattered.

Perhaps, Edward simply meant the only opinion in the room that mattered. Perhaps what he really meant was that it all came down to Carlisle as he was the only with the expertise and the tolerance to blood to be able to perform the abortion. In that sense, Carlisle supposed he wasn’t wrong, ultimately it was what Carlisle decided to do that would matter.

Once, not so long ago, Carlisle would have told himself that this was exactly what Edward had meant.

Now he couldn’t help but wonder, no, think, that Bella’s opinion had very much been left out on purpose. To Edward, her conviction and decision didn’t matter, was an after thought at best, and that once Carlisle was convinced all that would remain would be to cajole, persuade, or else trick Bella into agreeing with him.

Just as, apparently, he had in every major decision in her life.

“I agree that this pregnancy is likely extremely dangerous,” Carlisle began, “I agree she may not survive it, may not even manage to carry the child to term, and I agree that we are venturing into unknown territory that could result in tragedy at every turn. However, I also believe that ultimately it is not my decision to make, nor is it the decision of anyone in this room.”

“If Bella changes her mind,” Carlisle said evenly, “Then yes, I will perform the abortion. If she does not, then I will not.”

Edward gritted his teeth, gripped the armrest of his seat, and then said, “But if she changed her mind—”

“I’ll hear it from her lips alone,” Carlisle cut in, “Not from you, not a vision from Alice, only from her and without anyone else in the room.”

It had taken him nearly two years now, but Carlisle had finally realized just how much Edward had tried to speak for Bella in her place, and how much he chose to beg for her forgiveness rather than ask for her permission.

“And with that,” Carlisle said, forcing himself to smile, “I believe the discussion is over.”

And not one of them said a word in response.


	10. The Ballad of Esme and Carlisle

It had only been twelve hours since Carlisle and Edward had returned from Bella’s, twelve hours since both had learned Bella was pregnant with Carlisle’s child, but it felt as if it had been twelve years.

Though no one said anything since the initial argument, since Carlisle’s non-negotiable decision to follow Bella Swan’s lead, battle lines had been drawn.

Jasper had started packing his and Alice’s things immediately. A trunk filled with Alice’s belongings sat damningly by the front door, Jasper’s silent warning to Carlisle of what would happen by sunset if he chose to persist in this madness.

Alice had hovered by the trunk, a conflicted look on her face, but she hadn’t declared that she wouldn’t leave the house and thus Bella behind. Jasper, Carlisle was sure, would listen to her if she insisted. Alice’s happiness was paramount to him. She didn’t say a word though and her silence spoke for itself.

Where they would go was a mystery to Carlisle. Perhaps to one of the other Cullen properties, though Carlisle doubted it. This was Jasper making a statement, calling Carlisle a fool for playing with their lives in a time of crisis, and perhaps enraged that Carlisle would allow Bella to risk her life over an impossible dream.

Jasper’s relationship with Bella was complicated. Carlisle was sure Bella didn’t know, Jasper had kept so much distance from her, but Jasper was rather fond of her. He found her strange and more than a little naïve, but he was fond of her none the less and had been excited to see her become a part of their lives. Certainly, he’d been excited to be able to stand near her without the danger of devouring her.

That certainly didn’t help things either. Jasper would always carry the guilt, shame, and horror of having nearly eaten her with him. Every time he looked at her, he saw the girl he’d almost murdered and would undoubtedly be devastated should anything happen to her.

Bella herself he viewed with awe for the way she had so easily forgiven him. She had seen him at his worst, for what he truly was, and she hadn’t even flinched. She’d accepted him openly as her future brother-in-law and seemed to have no idea that Jasper expected her to be terrified of him. To him, Carlisle was sure, Bella represented the best of humanity.

Jasper would not stay to watch as she died. More, if the child was what Jasper feared, then he did not want to be the one to dispose of it in front of her. If Jasper stayed, they all knew that he would be the one who would do it.

He had his limits, silent boundaries he dared not speak of nor cross, and Carlisle would not blame him for it.

Edward and Esme had disappeared somewhere, left the house entirely, and had yet to return. Carlisle imagined Esme was attempting to console Edward as well as herself. The feelings of betrayal Carlisle had expected weeks ago finally appeared to have hit.

Carlisle imagined running after them, after her, and finding her but—

They had had weeks to talk, and he had tried. He’d tried to ask her how she felt, tell her how he felt and why he had done it, but she hadn’t wanted to listen. Now he had nothing left to say.

As a result, only Rosalie, Emmett, and Carlisle remained where they were. Sitting in that damned living room waiting for something, anything, to happen.

“When’s she supposed to get here?” Rosalie finally asked as the clock chimed noon. In the twelve hours since Rosalie had learned everything, she’d seemed to have come to terms with it.

There were no words now about Carlisle’s having slept with Bella, no open contempt, disdain, or anger. Rosalie had said her piece, said it once and said it strongly, and now the matter between them appeared to be settled.

Well, perhaps not settled, but she was making her priorities clear as she always did.

She would stay, and thus Emmett with her, and stand beside Carlisle and Bella until the very end no matter what Rosalie thought of the pair of them. They could talk about marriage, ethics, and adultery later, but for now, for the child, there was no question of where she stood.

“I don’t know,” Carlisle answered quietly.

“Should we go pick her up?” Rosalie asked and Carlisle shook his head.

“Originally, ideally, I would have brought her here immediately but—”

Edward had appeared, shattered her window, and Bella had been forced to throw a fit to explain its state. He doubted Charlie Swan would let her out of his sight now, not after the last three times she’d nearly disappeared without a trace thanks to Edward Cullen. More, even if she did manage to get away, given the wedding that had just fallen through—

It was all too likely the blame would fall on Edward Cullen.

Bella would have to come up with some excuse, some reason, on her own as to why she had to leave. Carlisle was hoping she’d get a chance to call, they could talk and come up with some sort of plan. He was tempted to call himself, except for the fear that she’d answer with Charlie with her and that the he would see the caller ID. As it was, some part of him was sure she’d come up with something herself: and given all the other plans Carlisle knew Bella had come up with it would be terrible.

“But?” Rosalie prompted.

“Charlie will immediately suspect Edward of murdering or abducting her if she were to disappear now,” Carlisle explained, “Given Bella’s condition, that would not be ideal.”

It was one thing to pack up and move in the middle of the night when it was only the six of them running from vague suspicions. It was another if they became suspects in a kidnapping investigation of a human girl they had, indeed, kidnapped.

They would have to disappear soon regardless. They might have to disappear now, depending on Bella, but if they were subjects of an investigation…

Carlisle couldn’t simply move across the country, not even to another country, the family would have to disappear for decades.

“But she is going to call?” Rosalie asked, looking more and more desperate.

“Yes,” Carlisle said, and even though he didn’t know for sure he was sure that she would. Somehow, with the same faith he had for God, he believed that Bella Swan would not simply disappear.

She would call.

“So, while we’re waiting,” Emmett drawled slowly, “Can we talk about you having sex with Bella?”

Rosalie and Carlisle both turned as one to look at him.

“Really?” Rosalie asked.

“What?” Emmett responded, looking wounded, “We’re just sitting here anyway. And as soon as Bella gets here, I’m sure it’s going to be all about the little antichrist.”

Carlisle blanched, “Please do not refer to it as—"

Emmett spoke right over him, “I mean, I know this isn’t great timing but I’m just dying over here. I have to know was it—was it good?”

“Emmett!” Rosalie screeched in horror, whacking Emmett over the head.

“She’s so squishy and tiny!” Emmett exclaimed, knocking away his wife’s hand, “I mean, even for a human, she’s practically made of glass! I just—how the hell is she not in a wheelchair right now? And where did you even do it? Does she have frostbite in her—”

“Emmett!” Rosalie tried again, “None of that is important! I don’t want to know how they—”

“You’ve got to be curious,” Emmett interjected, “I’ve been dying for like, twelve hours now, I have to know!”

“You don’t have to know!”

“Yes, I do!” Emmett said, “This is for science, Rose!”

“Oh my god,” Rosalie said, rubbing at her temples, “I don’t want to know how Carlisle and Bella had sex! I don’t even want to know why they had sex.”

  
Even having been there in person, Carlisle wasn’t sure he could explain exactly why it had happened.

She’d asked, of course, and they’d been given the blessing of their respective significant others but—Well, it had certainly been a moment.

“I don’t want to even discuss it,” Rosalie continued, closing her eyes as if, should she open them, she’d see Bella and Carlisle on the floor in front of her, “I am so disgusted by everyone I just—But it happened, we’re here, and we are going to help Bella in any way we can.”

“And Carlisle,” Emmett added, “You know, since it’s his little—”

  
“Carlisle,” Rosalie said looking pointedly at Carlisle, “Can go to hell for being a sex depraved fiend who will cheat on his wife just because Edward tells him to. Carlisle belongs in a cheap Eastern European porn film. As far as I’m concerned, Carlisle is just the hapless vampire sperm doner.”

Carlisle just blinked once, twice, and finally said, “Thank you, Rose.”

“I’m not talking to you about anything not relating to Bella’s pregnancy for a year,” Rosalie said, staring him directly in the eyes and daring him to beg for her forgiveness.

Carlisle didn’t try, everything she’d accused him of was technically true.

He turned to answer Emmett with a sigh, “To answer your question, we used the hot tub.”

“Really, Carlisle?” Rosalie asked, no doubt thinking of college students, spring break, and the type of people who had sex in hot tubs.

Now it was Emmett’s turn to look horrified and panicked, “You what?! You used my hot tub!”

“Have you ever used your hot tub?” Carlisle asked in turn, knowing full well the answer was no.

“I had plans for it!” Emmett said, “Rosalie and I were going to use it!”

“We were never going to use it,” Rosalie corrected, rolling her eyes.

“We might have used it!” Emmett retorted, then, clutching at his unbeating heart said, “Now, god, we never will. I can’t unsee it.”

“You asked,” Carlisle pointed out.

“You weren’t supposed to tell me!” Emmett shouted. He then gestured towards Carlisle in amazed despair, “What—what happened to normal, polite, dad Carlisle? You know, the guy who would never ever tell me he had sex with Bella Swan in a hot tub.”

Carlisle considered that for a moment, considered who he’d been not so long ago, but he was so emotionally exhausted he couldn’t remember if he’d ever been that person Emmett was describing.

So, he simply said, “He’s dead.”

Then, because he was unable to help himself, he added, “I believe he died sometime between Edward assuring him that Bella wouldn’t even notice the difference and his wife telling him to spend Edward’s honeymoon with Bella in Brazil.”

Both Rosalie and Emmett stared at him with open mouths, doing remarkable impressions of drowning fish.

“I don’t believe we’ll be seeing him again,” Carlisle finished calmly.

None of them had anything to say after that.

For several minutes they sat in complete silence, waiting for Bella to either call or arrive.

Finally, Rosalie spoke, “Carlisle, what—what about you and Esme?”

The question of the hour.

Carlisle smiled bitterly, “I don’t know.”

He’d thought about that himself, thought about it when she ran out of the house with Edward without a word to him. They’d been married so long and yet—

He couldn’t remember the last time they’d talked.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d said anything of any importance to her. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d done the same for him. It suddenly felt as if they’d been drifting apart for years, in some sham of a marriage, such a farce that Esme could easily suggest he sleep with another and think it wouldn’t make a difference.

And it hadn’t. Wasn’t that the cruelest joke of all?

For those two weeks between the weekend and the wedding, Esme had known exactly what he had done, and she hadn’t cared in the slightest. No, she’d been preparing him for Edward’s wedding night, for Edward’s honeymoon, and Carlisle imagined that even had those happened she would have been perfectly fine.

After all those years, after everything, and they’d had nothing.

He wasn’t sure if Esme could forgive him for what was happening. However, more than that, Carlisle wasn’t sure that he could pretend to go back to what they had been. No, he couldn’t go back to pretending to be in a relationship he had evidently never been in in the first place.

He hadn’t even been able to run after her…

“Carlisle, you can still fix this,” Rosalie said softly.

“I thought I was an Eastern European porn star,” Carlisle said with a bitter smile.

“You are,” Rosalie said firmly, “If Emmett did what you did, I’d—well, I’d never have given permission.”

“No,” Carlisle said softly, “You wouldn’t.”

“But she loves you, Carlisle,” Rosalie continued, “Esme—”

“Rosalie,” Carlisle interjected, shaking his head slowly, “I’m not sure Esme even likes me.”

And he wasn’t, he—

It occurred to him only now, years too late, that they didn’t know each other. The Esme he thought he had married would never have agreed to any of this. Even if she had, she would never have later looked at him the way she had last night. As if only then, only in that moment, had he betrayed her.

No doubt, Esme felt the same regarding him, she had even said as much.

Who had they even married? It certainly hadn’t been each other.

Funny, he’d thought he was so knowledgeable when he’d approached Bella. He’d talk to her about her and Edward’s relationship, serve as an advisor on what love was and how to find it, how to make a marriage work, and here it turned out his marriage was the biggest joke of all.

No wonder Alice had advised him to say nothing.

And yet, at least, at least Bella realized her mistake long before he had. At least Bella, even if it was Bella alone and not Edward, had realized that they weren’t ready.

And she’d been so brave, so strong, stronger than anyone had ever given her credit for.

Would Carlisle have been able to do what she’d done? Could he do it even now? Could he tell Esme they needed to talk, desperately talk about the state of their marriage and rediscover who they were? Could he leave her? Could he watch her leave him and not say a word? Could he turn his back on everything he knew, decades of his life with a woman he still thought he loved desperately? Would he have been able to say no to her over and over and over again the way Bella had with Edward?

With only one conversation, held with a man she barely knew, Bella had had the strength to do what Carlisle could scarcely imagine doing himself.

And even now, as she hurtled into the unknown and faced death, she didn’t hesitate.

She prepared to leave her father behind, knowing what it would do to him. She prepared to face Edward, knowing how he might react. She prepared to carry and raise an inhuman child that was not Edward’s, not Jacob Black’s, but that of a man she had spent only one weekend with.

Carlisle hadn’t realized at the time, had only distantly acknowledged it, but Bella Swan just might be the strongest person he’d ever known.

It was at that moment that he heard her car, her familiar battered truck, turn into the driveway.

They stood as one and made their way to the door. Opening it, they saw Bella clamber out of the truck desperately. She barely made it onto the ground before she vomited on the pavement.

They watched in mute horror as she continued dry heaving for several seconds afterwards, one hand gripping the truck to keep her upright while the other rested on her stomach. Finally, she stopped and looked up at them, taking them in one by one: Carlisle, Emmett, and Rosalie.

She didn’t ask where the others were, didn’t even look for them.

Her eyes were dulled by exhaustion, her face paler than usual with just a hint of green, and her voice was hoarse as she said, “So, we’ve got a few problems.”

She removed her hand from the truck to start counting off fingers, “One, I haven’t been able to keep anything down for days. I just tried to eat one of those saltine crackers, huge mistake.”

“Two,” she continued, “Charlie noticed and, thanks to my mental breakdown in the middle of the night and vomiting everything, he tried to take me to the emergency room.”

Oh, oh no—

“Three, when I made a break for it in the truck, he set Jake after me. Jake, of course, found me because the truck wasn’t made for speed, and he—well... Let’s just say he saw my stomach and took a wild guess and after that he went digging through my garbage and found a whole pile of pregnancy tests.”

Bella took a deep calming breath, clutching her stomach, and added, “Four, which is really three, I—I don’t know what Jake’s going to do but—”

She didn’t say it, perhaps couldn’t. The Quileute tribe had been her friends and protectors in her darkest hour, when the Cullens were nowhere to be found and Victoria was terrorizing the small town. She’d been close with them, but especially with Jacob Black, so close that even Edward couldn’t break her bond with him for all that he’d nearly won her hand in marriage.

And Carlisle didn’t want to imagine what Bella was implying either. These were warm, generous, people. People who had come to their aid against a common enemy when even the Denali had not.

But if they realized what Bella was carrying…

Bella then nearly doubled over, she weakly smiled up at them, “And five is that he kicks. He kicks hard.”

She stumbled towards them, Carlisle rushed over to help support her, and she smiled up at him gratefully.

“The good news is I called Charlie and told him I was running away to Florida,” Bella said as they slowly walked into the house, “Somebody can take the truck, I can call every few hours or something, and then I can… I can disappear somewhere in the middle of the country.”

“We’ll take care of it,” Carlisle said softly, and he wished he could say something more than that, tell her that her worries were over, that he was so sorry she had to do this, but she didn’t seem to mind.

Instead, she grinned up at him as if he’d said the kindest words he possibly could.

He smiled gently back down at her.

He swore that somehow, no matter what, he’d make sure that everything would turn out fine.


	11. Alice's Prophecy

“Oh,” was Bella’s first word on entering through the doorway.

Carlisle, who had been supporting her despite their vast height difference, paused. In the excitement of her arrival, he had almost forgotten Jasper and Alice’s packed bags.

Bella’s eyes lingered on them and it was clear that even at a glance she could recognize what were clearly Alice’s belongings. The bag themselves were too chic to possibly belong to anyone else, each a matching, pristine, white with golden buckles.

Perhaps summoned by Bella’s thoughts, or more likely by the sound of her arrival, Alice appeared at the bottom of the stairs with Jasper lurking at a careful distance behind her. It was, Carlisle realized, a recreation of when Bella had first visited the Cullen household with Edward years ago.

Carlisle had stood right where Alice was standing, ready at a moment’s notice to step in should Esme have lost control…

Regardless, he’d stood right there with Esme in front of him, wearing a strained smile for the human girlfriend Edward had sprung on them with only a few hours’ notice. Back then, Bella had been more a concept than anything else.

First, the distant idea of Chief Charlie Swan’s estranged daughter. Then, the girl that Edward might very well devour out of a misplaced sense of pride. Not long after that, the innocent girl his family conspired to murder for having witnessed Edward’s superhuman abilities when he saved her from the van. And then she’d been the human being responsible for taking small spark of life in Edward and fanning it into a flame.

She had not only inspired Edward, brought music and life back to him, but she had made him a better person in a way Carlisle never could. Through Bella, it had seemed, Edward finally understood the importance of human life, not as this abstract concept, but as something that embodied every soul on this planet.

That strange enigma, a girl who had done so much in so little time, was the one who Carlisle had first and very briefly met that day.

Now, their positions were reversed.

It was Carlisle who entered this house with Bella, feeling like a stranger in his own home. His family, this coven he had created, felt like distant ideas to him. Concepts he had once known well but grew estranged from without even noticing.

Bella, on the other hand, had suddenly become the one thing he felt he knew.

Alice looked devastated.

All her carefully maintained human mannerisms were gone. She was far too still, unnaturally so. She was nothing more than a marble statue, one with wide painted eyes and her lips held open with the smallest ‘oh’ of sorrow.

Bella stared back at her with an expression that could best be described as numb.

“You’re leaving?” Bella asked.

Alice twitched back into life, taking a step forward, only to hesitate.

“I don’t want to,” Alice said.

“Then don’t,” Bella replied, oddly calm, ignoring the way that Emmett and Rosalie hovered warily behind her, perhaps deciding whether or not it was worth it to make their exit before the fight began.

“Bella, it’s not—”

“I can’t make you stay,” Bella interjected, “I think I’ve finally come to terms with that. If you’re staying, stay, but if you’re going then go.”

Bella paused, took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut, when she spoke again there was finally a trace of pain in her voice, “Is it the wedding, Edward, or is it the baby?”

Here Alice actually did stumble forward, steps unusually unsteady, lacking all of her innate grace, “Bella, it’s not like that—”

“Well, it’s something, isn’t it?!” Bella snapped, “Or are you trying to tell me, after all that work, after all these years that you’re thrilled this is happening?! That’s why you’ve packed your bags, right?! Because you’re so thrilled!”

“Bella, I can’t see it!” Alice said, motioning desperately to Bella’s stomach, “It’s like the wolves, Bella. I can’t see it, or you while you’re carrying it and—And Jasper is worried about the Volturi, you know I only ever see flashes for those outside the family. Bella, if I can’t see you, if I can’t see anyone here then—”

“He is not an it!” Bella shouted back, hand fluttering to her stomach in a protective motion.

At her own words she looked stricken, taking in Alice’s devastated face, nevertheless her hand did not leave her stomach.

“Alice, I’m—” she paused, seemed forced to search for her own words, but Alice beat her to it.

“You’re not giving it up,” Alice finished for her with a sad smile, “I know, I—I can’t see a future where you give it up. I mean, I can barely see you at all but—if you could give it up, I think that future would be crystal clear.”

Alice shook her head fervently, as if shaking away her own thoughts, “I can’t see what it is, what it will be, or anything that might happen but—I know, Bella, and I’m not going to try.”

“What do you mean what it will be?” Bella asked quietly, but Alice just shook her head and looked back at Jasper, perhaps wondering if he would be the one to tell her.

Jasper said nothing, just looked pointedly away from Bella. Finally, after a moment, he said, “I truly am sorry we cannot stay. Afterwards, if—all goes well, Alice and I will return.”

Bella looked up at him, searching his face for sincerity, then asked in a raw voice, “You promise?”

“Yes,” Jasper said with a small nod.

He stepped down the stairs slowly, carefully, as if bracing himself against Bella’s scent. When he reached Alice, he stopped to look at Bella, an expression of grim determination on his face, “Alice and I will dispose of your car, we can do that much for you.”

“It’ll be fun,” Alice added with a forced, chipper, grin, “On our last road trip, Jasper and I never got as far as Florida.”

Bella smiled weakly back.

Alice and Jasper, sensing this as their cue to exit, made their way past Bella and towards the door. The pair lifted Alice’s bags with ease, despite how much had been stuffed into them and how much each weighed.

Bella turned her head to watch, “Will you at least call this time?”

Alice stumbled for a moment, as if she’d been hit, but when she looked back, she smiled, “Of course, Bella, that was—those were very different circumstances.”

And just like that, with the sound of Bella’s truck roaring back into life and making its way slowly out of the driveway, the pair were gone. For now, driving south and east, afterwards God only knew where.

For all of Jasper’s promises, Carlisle remembered Alice’s word of warning about the breaking of the coven, and wondered if he or Bella would see the pair again. For all that Rosalie and Emmett often went on their own, Jasper and Alice too, this somehow felt more final.

As if, after this, his coven would never be the same.

“That went well,” Bella remarked once the truck was out of her human hearing.

Carlisle couldn’t help but glance down at her with a raised brow. She sounded oddly matter of fact, almost pleasant even. There was no trace of sarcasm or bitterness anywhere in her voice.

“She promised to call and said goodbye this time,” Bella explained, “I mean, with you guys one never knows when you’ll all pick up and vamoose, part of me expected this place to be completely empty when I drove in.”

He wasn’t sure if he should be horrified or else insulted that she thought so little of his coven. Then, of course, he remembered that every word out of her mouth they had earned ten-fold thanks to their actions half a year prior. Not to mention, of course, that Alice and Jasper had indeed just lived up to Bella’s low expectations and abandoned her a second time in short order.

Abandoned her now, when perhaps her need was greater than it had ever been before.

Put like that, there was nothing Carlisle could say in any of their defense.

Perhaps, more damningly, Carlisle found he no longer wished to say anything in their defense.

“And they’ll be back,” Bella said, as if she were the one reassuring him, “They promised they would come back, they’re not gone forever just until… Well, for a little while. It’s not like I’ve broken up the family or anything!”

Rosalie, Emmett, and Carlisle said nothing to that. Undoubtedly, each was thinking of Carlisle’s earlier admission, that he no longer was certain where he stood with Esme. Bella, however, didn’t seem to notice that their silence wasn’t for a lack of words but instead perhaps too many of them.

Bella instead looked around the foyer, “Are Edward and Esme nearby, so we can rip this band aid off and move onto the next one?”

Carlisle was suddenly inordinately grateful that he had seen neither Esme nor Edward for hours.

“Perhaps we had best get you situated first,” Carlisle said instead, resuming his and Bella’s progress towards the living room.

“Right,” Bella said, “One should be comfortable when telling one’s ex-fiancé that they were knocked up by his dad.”

Carlisle nearly fell over, Rosalie having to take up the task of supporting Bella from her other side, “Focus Carlisle!”

Carlisle, for the record, thought he was handling all of this admirably given it had not been even twenty-four hours since he’d been made aware of this situation. If all the implications had yet to fully sink in, well, he’d get there soon enough.

With no further trouble, they quickly maneuvered Bella over to the sofa, where she stretched across it with a loud contented sigh, “This is nice, it’s been… a day.”

Wasn’t that an understatement?

Bella glanced over at Rosalie and Emmett, large eyes assessing them. Rosalie didn’t flinch under the look, but she did straighten ever so slightly, jutting out her chin as if she was just daring Bella to say something.

“Thank you,” Bella said instead, “For staying and supporting me.”

Rosalie blinked back in stunned surprised. Quietly, she said, “Of course, we may have our differences but… Bella, I do understand.”  
  


“I know,” Bella said with a smile in turn, “It’s why I called you first.”

Rosalie’s eyes widened in realization, it seemed she hadn’t quite put together just why Bella would have called her before this moment. She seemed as if she wasn’t quite sure what to do with this information and settled for sitting across from Bella in one of the love seats.

Emmett quickly joined her.

They remained there for a moment, much as they had before Bella’s arrival, Carlisle, Rosalie, and Emmett entirely unsure what to do with themselves. Now that Bella was here, they should be getting her food and liquids, should be gauging the health of both Bella and the child, yet all Carlisle could seem to do was stand there like an idiot.

“So, Bells, you got knocked up by the most strait-laced vampire in the universe,” Emmett summarized after a beat, “How do you feel?”

“Fat, hungry, and very nauseous,” Bella responded evenly.

There was no one, Carlisle was starting to realize, who handled a crisis quite like Bella Swan.

“I’ll go get the medical equipment ready,” Carlisle said in lieu of a response, best to make himself useful.

He was glad that his paranoia had gotten the better of him. Ever since their return to Forks, after Bella’s birthday disaster, he’d decided to finally put all that money rotting in investments to good use and buy himself his own personal ER for Bella Swan.

Given her nearly daily brushes with death, her constant stream of absurd injuries and broken bones, it was only a matter of time until she ended up in the ICU, and he’d had this sinking feeling that the next time circumstances wouldn’t allow her to be taken to a true hospital.

That premonition had turned out to be right, though he hadn’t anticipated her becoming pregnant with his own hybrid vampire child. He very much would have lost that bet.

As he entered the room which had become Bella’s unofficial operating room, he reassured himself that he was, perhaps, the most prepared out of anyone in the world to deal with this. No human doctor could tend to her, given the rate of her pregnancy and what she was carrying, and even if they could they’d face the same lack of expertise he himself did. Worse, in fact, as vampires would be completely unknown to them.

Carlisle had unsurpassed knowledge of human anatomy among vampires as well as many human doctors. He was not an OB-GYN by trade, but he had studied human physiology in depth and what he didn’t know he could quickly learn. He was an expert surgeon, had strove for centuries to understand what he could of venom and vampires’ strange, altered anatomy, and even had the Volturi had knowledge of this they likely still would have called in Carlisle as a consultant.

If it had been Edward’s child, if Edward had actually slept with his wife instead of pushing it onto Carlisle, then Carlisle would still be in this room right now.

He could do this. Perhaps, in some strange unwitting way, Carlisle had been preparing for this for a hundred years. Ever since that moment he first decided he would spend his immortal life masquerading as a human doctor.

Just as Carlisle made for the ultrasound machine and the IV drip, intending to wheel them to Bella, he heard the front door open to the sound of familiar footsteps.

It seemed that Edward had returned.

Carlisle closed his eyes in growing dismay and frustration. Could he not have waited even a few more hours?

The conversation between Bella and Emmett abruptly cut off on Emmett’s end as he noted Edward’s presence first. The question he’d had revolving around Bella’s sordid sex life died on his lips and Carlisle could almost picture him, Rosalie, and Bella all turning towards Edward as he made his way into the living room.

Even across the house, even as Carlisle moved the equipment back to Bella, Edward’s footsteps were deafening.

Carlisle arrived just as Edward came to a halt in front of Bella. Like Alice, his learned human mannerisms seemed to have abandoned him, and he stood statue still in front of her, staring down at her visibly pregnant stomach in revulsion.

He didn’t so much as glance at Carlisle, not even as Carlisle strode past him. He did, however, take a moment to sneer both at the ultrasound as well as the IV drip.

Bella glanced away from Edward to the IV with a grimace then a half smile, “Needles already, Doctor?”  
  


“You said it’s been a day since you’ve kept anything down,” Carlisle said, smiling back, as if Edward was not standing behind him oozing an air of menace.

“Couldn’t we push it to two days?” Bella asked.

“I’m afraid not,” Carlisle said, watching as she rolled up her sleeve for him, already knowing this routine by heart, “We’re tempting fate enough as it is, Bella.”

“Tempting fate,” Edward said contemptuously, “Is that what we’re calling this needless, dangerous, exercise?”

“Edward—” Rosalie started, standing up even while Emmett tried to hold her back.

“Carlisle, haven’t you told her what she’s really carrying?” Edward asked, now looking directly at him.

Carlisle didn’t stop his movements, instead continued to prepare the IV, while he silently dared Edward to go ahead and say whatever it was he had come to say. Clearly, there would be no peace until Edward said it.

“And you think there’ll be peace afterwards?” Edward sneered, “For any of us?”

“Edward,” Bella said slowly, her voice wobbling ever so slightly as she looked across at him, as if the very sight of him was breaking something inside her, “This isn’t your decision.”

“No,” Edward said, finally looking back at her, “You and Rosalie have made that very clear. I wasn’t the sperm doner, therefore I have nothing to do with it. I, after all, am only your husband.”

Bella bit her lip, shaking her head slowly, “Edward, we’re not married—”

“I love you!” Edward insisted, kneeling down before her as if he were a knight seeking supplication, “We may not have traded vows yesterday but for all I’m concerned I gave my vows to you the day we first met! I love you Bella, and I will never love another.”

Edward motioned violently to Carlisle, “Can he say that much?!”

“It’s—” Bella paused, glanced at Carlisle for an instant, eyes swimming with conflicting emotion, before looking back at Edward, “It’s about him, it is his baby, but it’s not about him either. Edward, I didn’t leave you for Carlisle. I didn’t leave you for anybody, I left you for you, for us. Because we’re not right for each other, Edward, you don’t—you don’t love me.”

“Why are you so convinced you can tell me what I do and do not feel?!” Edward asked in turn, hands moving towards her. They stopped short of her though, trembling, as if he could not dare to truly touch her.

“I’m not telling you what you feel—”

“You’re trying to tell me that my love isn’t good enough—”

“I’m trying to tell you that you’re in love with an idea!” Bella shouted back, and it was as if her words broke something, the house almost echoed with them, “Edward, what do we even know about each other?”

Edward scoffed, rolling his eyes despite the devastation on his face, “Bella, we’ve been through this, I know—”

“My favorite color is an icebreaker, Edward,” Bella interjected with a short almost imperceptible glance to Carlisle, as she took the words he had once given her, “Asking me twenty-questions at lunch for a few days… That’s not me.”

  
“Edward,” Bella sat up slowly and placed her hands on top of his, “I’m not the person you think I am. I’m selfish, I’m short-sighted, I—look what I’ve done to Charlie, look what I’ve done to your family, to you. I got myself pregnant with your dad, of all people, and I’m making you all deal with it. I’m not above acting for myself and I can’t bring myself to regret it.”

Bella closed her eyes, clenched her hands tighter around Edward’s, “You’re always saying I’m like a saint or even an angel, that I only ever do things for others, just because I politely turn a few guys down for a dance with the world’s lamest excuse. But I’m not, Edward, I’m just an ordinary girl who goes to an ordinary high school and once lived an ordinary life. I held onto you for so long even though—Even though I always knew you didn’t love me. That’s not the girl you’re in love with, Edward, she’d have let you go the second she laid eyes on you.”

“But it is,” Edward insisted, “Don’t you see? You’re trying to let me go now, thinking it’s in my best interest, and if that’s not—”

“You’re in love with someone who doesn’t exist,” Bella insisted, tears now in her eyes, “Edward, she’s out there somewhere, but I’m not her and I can’t—I can’t pretend to be her.”

For a moment Edward said nothing and Carlisle, Rosalie, and Emmett were left to stare at each other and wonder whether or not they were supposed to leave the room. This was not a conversation he should be witness to. Much like many moments he found himself in Bella and Edward’s company in the past two weeks, he felt the unintentional voyeur.

In any other circumstance, Carlisle would have left by now.

However, he found his feet glued to the floor, not so much out of stunned amazement at the scene in front of him but out of a fear he scarcely dared to acknowledge. Some part of him would not leave her side, had even cast aside setting up her IV drip, while Edward was so close to her. Some part of him, something instinctual and growing with every second, insisted that Edward was a threat.

Once, not so long ago, he’d wanted to think the best of Edward. He’d think that surely, no matter how devastated Edward was, he wouldn’t resort to using force against Bella. Edward, while troubled, had been the most noble of them all. A gentle, artistic, spirit who inhabited the body of a demon.

Now, he was not so sure.

Edward was a man who seemed convinced that Bella’s will was inconsequential when compared to his own. That any disagreements they had could be settled in the aftermath. He was someone who had given away her wedding night to his father without batting an eye. He was someone who insisted Bella marry him despite her trying to call it off multiple times.

And Edward was often driven to recklessness when in dire straits.

Were Edward convinced it was in his best interest, which he was, and if he was certain Carlisle would not perform an abortion, then Carlisle wasn’t sure what Edward would do.

And there was this air about him, a palpable barely contained rage, that had the hairs standing on the back of Carlisle’s neck.

Edward looked up at Carlisle slowly in contempt, “So, this is what you truly think of me then? After all these years.”

“Edward—” Carlisle started but Edward held up a hand and stood.

“Bella, that thing you’re carrying is not human,” Edward said without any emotion.

Bella flinched at his words and her hand once again moved to her stomach protectively.

“It’s not even half-human,” Edward sneered, “It carries our venom in its veins which means it can only be one thing.”

“Edward—” Bella started in warning, but he just smiled down at her.

“You are kind, Bella, kind and courageous,” he said, awe in his voice as it always was when he spoke of Bella Swan’s positive qualities, “You give pity, love, and adoration to monsters. This one though, Bella, this one will devour you from the inside and then—Have I ever told you of the immortal children?”

“Edward—” Rosalie said but he held up a hand.

“There are many vampires who long for a child,” Edward said, “Some, however, become so desperate that they turn a human child themselves. A toddler, usually, and they have this angelic thing that never grows up. All it does is hunger, and thirst, and feed until entire towns are demolished to sate it. It has no control, no sentience, and is nothing but a cannibalistic ghoul.”

Edward motioned to her stomach, “Jasper fears that thing in your womb is an immortal child, if not something worse, that’s the real reason he and Alice left. The Volturi could come any minute, would surely execute us for that, but mostly he doesn’t want to stay to see it. To be forced to dispose of it on your behalf. Alice doesn’t either. And I’m supposed to watch you die for that monster inside you?”

“You don’t know that!” Rosalie cut in, stepping towards Edward and catching his hand in hers, “You don’t know any more than we do, Edward! This baby is a miracle, something we didn’t think was possible, and you have no say in what happens to it!”

“And neither do you,” Edward spat back, “Or do you really think that this child could be a replacement for the ones you never got to have? Perhaps, it will have golden hair not so different from your own, inherited from dear Carlisle. Perhaps, Bella will die in childbirth, and then the child would be yours—”

Emmett punched Edward across the face, throwing him down onto the floor.

Edward looked up at him, stunned, as if he’d never seen Emmett before in his life. A pale hand went to tentatively touch the cheek where Emmett had just hit him.

“Leave Rose out of this,” Emmett said.

Edward stood, keeping Emmett warily in his line of sight, but addressed Bella, “Bella, the wolves will never stand for it. Even now, Jacob Black is revealing your condition to them, and they will come to murder us all. Take action, before it’s too late.”

“Then I’ll leave,” Bella said, “I’ll leave Forks, the pack will never abandon the land. But Edward—I won’t do it. I’m keeping him.”

“No,” Edward said quietly, “I will leave.”

He took a deep breath, seeming to savor the very taste of the air, “Bella, I will not stay to watch you destroy yourself.”

His baleful gaze then moved to Carlisle, “And I can no longer abide standing under _his_ roof, pretending to be a member of _his_ hypocritical joke of a family. Family, we called it, as if it weren’t just another coven.”

“If you do not dispose of it,” Edward continued, “Then I will leave, and Esme will leave with me. Neither you, nor Carlisle, nor any who willingly stands in this house will ever see either of us again. If nothing else will convince you, Bella, then let this.”

He didn’t look at her as he said it, instead resolutely stared at Carlisle. Carlisle, though, he looked at Bella.

Despite everything, Carlisle thought she did love Edward. Perhaps it was a young love, something with room to grow, something in need of time and maturity, but she had loved him none the less.

She loved him even now.

“You said you would never leave unless I told you to,” Bella said, her voice breaking over her words.

“And you did,” Edward assured her, “You told me you did not wish to marry, that you wished for me to move on. And now, it seems, I am. Unless, of course, you change your mind.”

Bella opened her mouth, closed it, and her hand settled on her stomach once again. Her lips twitched into a wobbling, tearful, and so very human smile.

“Goodbye, Edward.”

Edward looked stunned, as if he hadn’t truly expected that answer, as if he had thought this would be enough for Bella. For a moment, he just looked at her, his face a mask of agony.

Then, with little more than gust of wind, he was gone.

More, despite everything, despite years of marriage, Carlisle did not disbelieve that Esme would leave with him. Without a word to Carlisle or to any of the rest of them, as if neither she nor Edward had ever existed.

Edward had always been her priority, since the very beginning, it was only that Carlisle had never forced her to choose until now. In a single breath of air, the sound of an opening then closing door, a marriage that had lasted decades crumbled into dust.

As if it had never existed in the first place.

“That—” Bella said to the empty space Edward had just occupied, “That was a lot worse than Alice and Jasper.”

She let out a tearful, hiccupping, laugh and looked at Carlisle, “So, about that IV?”

Carlisle forced himself to smile, and as gently as he could, inserted the needle into her skin.


	12. What Are We Going to Do About Bella?

Bella had not been in the house long, only a few minutes, but had already fallen deeply asleep.

She looked exhausted, as if she had been running on nothing more than fumes for days. From what she described, the lack of food she’d been able to keep down, the emotional exhaustion, that seemed to be the case. Even in the scant amount of time since the wedding she looked worse than she already had.

As soon as liquids had entered her severely dehydrated body she was out for the count.

Which left Rosalie, Emmett, and Carlisle.

“She’s not looking good,” Emmett said, the first to point out the obvious as always.

“No,” Carlisle agreed solemnly.

Without Edward, Esme, Alice, and Jasper the house felt quiet. Quiet in a way that it never had even when it had only been Carlisle and Edward or Carlisle and Esme.

Some part of him kept waiting to hear the door open and one of them, any of them, to reenter.

Of course, they never would.

But, in a way, that was the least of Carlisle’s worries.

A few key events had taken place in an extremely short amount of time.

First, Bella was in her current condition. Carlisle had only had a few hours to come to grips with it, half a day, but it had become clear very quickly that this was far more dangerous than an ordinary pregnancy would have been. Childbirth always carried risks, though modern medicine had made it far less grievous than it used to be, but now they were plunged straight back into the unknown with Bella’s life on the line.

Old statistics of infant and mother fatality haunted him.

Second, Bella Swan had just disappeared under suspicious circumstances. She had left in a mad rush, one that probably seemed coerced to her father, with a flimsy excuse of running away to her mother. All this very reminiscent of the strange, erratic, behavior she usually took on Edward Cullen’s behalf. She’d once used the same excuse in her attempt to escape James blaming Edward breaking up with her and her mad dash to Italy had been explained as talking Edward out of suicide at a moment’s notice.

When she never arrived at her mother’s, lost contact on the road, and Chief Swan also discovered Edward and half the Cullens missing…

Well, Carlisle would certainly suspect the Cullens had something to do with it. Ironically, Charlie would be right, just not in the way he suspected.

In ordinary circumstances, Carlisle and his family would disappear. Not simply disappear, either, but disappear in a manner they had never had to before. To his coven, picking up and moving just meant a new town and a new high school. Carlisle was always Dr. Carlisle Cullen, with his strange, adopted family and his beautiful wife. For all they complained, it was the same game every time with little variation, a tried-and-true routine at this point.

This time, there could be no Dr. Carlisle Cullen, not for at least ten years. Technology was not what it had once been, and these days it would be all too easy to look at Carlisle’s face and compare it to his employee photograph on Fork’s aging hospital website. If someone was actively looking for him, if the case achieved any publicity, which was all too likely with the scandal surrounding it, he imagined that moving across the country would no longer be enough. Moving to a different country might not be enough.

They would have to become nomads, wait for time to make the disappearance of Bella Swan fade into nothing more than an urban legend. One where Carlisle and his family simply looked eerily like the Cullen family who had once resided in Forks.

And yet, Carlisle could not simply disappear, because Bella was in no condition to be moved let alone moved off the grid.

Which brought them to the third point, their time limit was even more limited than that, as Sam Uley was undoubtedly coming. The wolves would be at their doorstep soon, Carlisle was shocked they weren’t here already. When they arrived, it would only be the three of them with Bella to protect. The house would be essentially under siege and… Carlisle was not willing to kill or even injure them.

The Quileute were good, honorable, people who thought they were doing the best to protect their lands and the people who dwelled within it. They had come to their aid once before not only to save the people of Forks but also those of Seattle. Carlisle could not brush that aside.

More, the wolves were all terribly young, nothing more than boys, and though Carlisle had no doubt they would be out for his blood he could not force himself to wade through the corpses of children.

Yet, there would be a fight, and however inexperienced they were and however little they knew about vampires, they had only three reluctant opponents.

They could take Bella and run, move her immediately despite the risks, but she needed access to medical equipment and could not be taken to a hospital…

In short, Carlisle was in the midst of a perfect storm.

He ran a hand through his hair, feeling as exhausted as Bella looked, and tried to think of something to say. Rosalie and Emmett were both staring at him, clearly waiting for him to come up with a plan, some sort of strategy, or at least tell them what to do.

He wanted to scream at them that there was no plan. This, whatever this was, was the plan. He was out of ideas, if he’d ever had any to begin with, and now there was nothing to do but stick an IV in Bella’s arm and hope that at least she was feeling better about all of this.

“You want to talk about it?” Rosalie asked quietly. It was unusually gentle. Sympathetic, despite how much contempt she currently held him in

He couldn’t help but look at her as if she’d gone completely mad.

“Esme,” Rosalie clarified.

Ah yes, his wife running off with Edward. He hadn’t necessarily forgotten about that but, well, Carlisle had bigger problems. No, that wasn’t right, he simply had more immediate problems.

That his and Esme’s relationship had been on the rocks was apparently not news. It was something that had likely been building for decades until it finally all crashed to pieces. The problem was not suddenly new just because Carlisle had been too dim to ever notice its existence.

And what was he supposed to do about it?

The way he saw it, he and Esme had had decades to work through the issues he’d never noticed. They’d certainly had weeks to work through it when it had finally dawned on him that maybe, just maybe, something wasn’t right in his marriage. That she left without even saying goodbye, without even daring to sit down and talk with him about any of this, had made it all too clear that there was no running after her and begging her to say.

And, more damningly, Carlisle did not wish for her too.

As upset as she was with him, something in him was just as broken. Even if she came back, even if she wanted him back, he didn’t think he could do it. They would never be what they were. No, perhaps they would, considering that it had all been illusion. However, they would never be what Carlisle had thought they were.

Carlisle couldn’t want that, whatever joke he and Esme had had. Even if it meant having nothing at all.

To Rosalie, he simply said, “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Carlisle,” Rosalie said, her mouth falling open and her eyebrows lowering, “Your wife just left you!”

“Yes,” Carlisle said simply.

“And you’re just going to let her—”

“Yes,” Carlisle said before she could finish, “If it’s reached this point, Rose, then we were already finished.”

Rosalie didn’t look as if she understood. Of course she didn’t, Carlisle thought with a smile. If Emmett had tried to leave her, she would have torn after him, demanded answers and demanded that they work through this.

She would have expected Emmett to do the same.

But Rosalie and Emmett had a functional marriage, Carlisle apparently did not.

“So, you’re just giving up?” Rosalie finally asked.

Was he?

He felt the answer should be yes. Certainly, some part of him was just too tired to try anymore. But…

No, he didn’t think he was giving up.

He found himself thinking of what he told Bella, that day when all of this started. She’d been ready to give up on hope for love, she’d told him that what she and Edward had must have been it for her. He had not agreed.

Some part of him thought Esme was it for him. Given his diet, his eccentricities, there would never be another. For all that he had many friends among vampires, despite their difference in diets and philosophies, he did not think he could marry someone who saw the world so differently than he did.

More, after Bella, he would never again turn another human. He had learned his lesson from Rosalie. For all that she would have died a miserable, meaningless, death filled with suffering, she did not ask to have been made a vampire. Even if a human were to give their consent to him, they would have no understanding of what they were asking for.

Even Bella, who had seen so much of them and become so entangled in their lives, did not truly understand what she would become. She simply no longer had a choice in the matter.

And Esme herself was never coming back. Even if she did, he could never go back to that.

Given all of that, given the three-hundred years he had spent alone, how could there ever be another?

And yet, all the same, eternity was such a long time. Once, Carlisle had never believed he would find a coven, in despair he had wondered if he could convince anyone to forsake devouring human beings, and he had certainly never thought he would be married. Yet, all of this had happened and more.

Perhaps it hadn’t lasted forever, but it had happened.

Forever was a long time. In all that time, surely, he could find something again. No, not just something, but something real.

So, it was with a smile that Rosalie undoubtedly did not understand, that Carlisle said, “No, no I have not given up. Esme and I are finished, but I have not given up.”

“Sure,” Emmett said dubiously, his dark eyebrows raising as he glanced at Rose as if to see if she was inside the sanity lifeboat with him, “That makes sense.”

Carlisle just kept smiling. Somehow, despite everything, he was in a better mood. He hadn’t realized that all he’d needed was a little internal pep talk.

“We’re going to have to leave,” Carlisle said, standing from the couch, “Rosalie, I’ll need you to pack and secure the most vital medical equipment.”

Sadly, some of it was going to have to stay. All that preparation, all that work, and here Carlisle was going to have to abandon his built-in medical facility. And only a few minutes ago he’d been so very proud of his foresight.

Ah well, the best laid plans of mice and men.

“Leave?” Rosalie asked, looking over at Bella passed out on the couch, “Bella can’t be moved—”

“I’m afraid we have no choice,” Carlisle said, “If Sam Uley is coming then we should have left hours ago.”

“We can take them—” Emmett said but Carlisle just shot him a warning glance.

“It’s their land and they have a right to defend it,” Carlisle said, “More, there is no reason to fight. We would have been leaving soon regardless.”

“But where will we even go?!” Rosalie asked, hands out wide.

“Well, in the short term, one of the Cullen properties is probably fine,” Carlisle said, “But as soon as Charlie Swan begins the investigation into his daughter’s disappearance, I imagine we’ll have to move to a seedy motel.”

A seedy motel or a cave, but the former at least had electricity.

“You can’t be serious!” Rosalie cried out in exasperation, “What about the Denali?”

“Would you risk their lives along with ours?” Carlisle asked with raised eyebrows, “Should worst come to worst, if the Volturi do decide the child’s a mindless monster, would you have them murdered for aiding and abetting us?”

Once, Carlisle would have thought Aro would be lenient or at least make some effort to understand. He would have thought Aro would destroy only those he had to, that it would be a reluctant and unwilling action at best.

After Victoria, after the callous murder of Bree, Carlisle wasn’t sure what to think.

Perhaps, some part of his friendship with Aro had survived. Perhaps that had somehow, miraculously, been Caius acting alone with Aro’s hands tied in the aftermath. Perhaps Aro was still his friend but…

Would he be willing to risk others’ lives on such a bet?

Not to mention, the Denali had had their brush with immortal children before, and they had proven themselves fair weather friends.

They would be very wary with Carlisle bringing such a thing to their doorstep, they were already contemptuous of Edward’s longstanding relationship with a human. Given their refusal to aid them repelling the newborn army only a few months prior, Carlisle could not imagine them opening their door to any of this.

Being the only other animal drinking coven Carlisle was aware of, he cherished them deeply, but he had learned the Denali were never to be relied upon. Not in something like this.

“Painting,” Bella suddenly said.

Carlisle, Rosalie, and Emmett all stopped and turned to Bella.

Her eyes were still closed, her breathing still even with sleep, but the word had been very clearly spoken.

Ah, right, hadn’t Edward said she talked in her sleep?

“Carlisle’s weird painting,” Bella spoke again, a furrow now on her brow, as if in her dream she was confronted by a very perplexing problem.

Before Rosalie could ask which of Carlisle’s many strange paintings Bella might be referring to, Bella’s eyes snapped open. She took the three of them in, seeming dazed for a moment, before glancing at the IV in her arm.

“Are we still in Forks?” she asked, her voice still raw from her confrontation with Edward.

Carlisle, Rosalie, and Emmett all glanced at each other sheepishly. The way Bella said it, she’d been expecting to wake up in a car.

“Ah, yes,” Carlisle finally said.

Bella just looked at him dully, then, after a moment said, “You realize Jake’s out for blood, right?”

“We were just about to leave,” Carlisle said, and with false cheer added, “Your being awake will make this much easier.”

Bella just kept staring.

After a pause she asked, “So, where are we going?”

Well, hadn’t she just asked the question of the hour? Carlisle felt the words “seedy motel” die on his tongue. Somehow, that just didn’t seem like the right response to give.

“We have nowhere to go, don’t we?” Bella clarified, again, apparently swiftly seeing to the heart of the matter.

“Well, there’s always—” Rosalie stopped, probably about to say, ‘The Denali’, only to hold her tongue, “No.”

“Right,” Bella said, nodding to herself, still staring at them all.

Well, wasn’t this awkward? Carlisle felt he should say something reassuring, but nothing was coming to mind.

“So, just to make sure I get all this,” Bella said as she sat upright, “The problem’s not just Jake and the gang coming to—well—kill us all. It’s also that I’m a yummy human, so we can’t really call in anyone else, and because the Volturi are probably going to come and kill me because I’m still a yummy human who is now also pregnant.”

Carlisle wouldn’t have put it quite like that but that was the crux of it.

Bella looked to all of them, but none of them responded. She didn’t seem to need them to, as she nodded to herself, “Alright then, I guess there’s only one thing to do.”

“There is?” Carlisle asked, as he had certainly arrived at no obvious solution.

“Looks like we need to bite the bullet and get it over with,” Bella said, “Let’s go to Italy.”

For a moment, Carlisle almost asked what was in Italy, and then he realized what she meant.

“Bella,” he said with growing fear, “That is a terrible idea.”

“Hear me out,” Bella said, holding up a hand, “None of us know anything about half-vampire babies, right? Carlisle, you didn’t think anyone could get pregnant, right?”

“Right,” Carlisle said slowly, not sure where Bella was heading with this.

“If anyone in the world, and I mean anyone, knew about this little guy, then it’d probably be them, right?”

Well, that wasn’t wrong in theory, but Aro had never brought up any of this either and they had certainly discussed immortal children at length. Aro had talked about everything and anything for the decades Carlisle had lived in Volterra, he imagined that vampires impregnating human women would have come up at some point.

But yes, if anyone would have heard of this, it would be Aro.

Bella must have read his answer, however reluctant, on his face, because she kept going with growing confidence.

“Part of the issue is that these guys are going to come, be completely blindsided, and either think one of us turned a toddler or just—I don’t know, eat me because they feel like it.”

That was not how Carlisle would have put it.

“So, why don’t we just get that part out of the way? Why don’t we just go now? Go, ‘Hey it’s a miracle, Bella’s pregnant with the new vampire baby Jesus, please don’t eat her!’ and either they say, ‘No, Bella’s a stupid yummy human and we must eat her’ or ‘Sure, but Bella has to join our super vampire club’ or ‘Wow, neat, a half-vampire baby, I’ve always wanted one of those!’”

Carlisle was beginning to wonder just what kind of impression the Volturi had left on Bella.

“Yes,” Carlisle said slowly, “But Bella, they may very well decide to kill you and your child. In fact—”

“The white-haired dude, sure,” Bella said, clearly meaning Caius, “But what about Aro? He seems—Edward says he likes shiny, new, things. This is the shiniest, newest, thing that ever shined.”

She motioned to her stomach, in all its glory.

She then looked at him, “And all the guy did when we were there was talk about you. It was Carlisle this, Carlisle that, my dear friend Carlisle, and even ‘Edward, you remind me of a very angry Carlisle’. I think, if we tell him its yours—”

Oh, oh no.

Oh, that would be a disaster beyond imagining.

Aro knowing Carlisle slept with his son’s teenage, human, bride to be? At his son and wife’s behest, no less? Aro witness to their horrible love making? Aro being direct witness to any of it, as he undoubtedly would demand to be?

Carlisle would never live it down.

Carlisle could hear Aro now, telling Carlisle that it was the most positively ‘Carlisle’ thing he’d ever heard since he caught Carlisle eating rats in Volterra’s sewer. Caius would then sneer in disgust and even Marcus would get that strange, befuddled, look that he often threw in Carlisle’s direction.

Not to mention that, after Victoria, Carlisle was no longer certain how far his friendship with Aro extended. He did not think it meant as much as Bella was implying.

“I’m just saying,” Bella said, holding up her hands placatingly, “That if we stay here, then Jake and the rest are coming and it—won’t be good. We apparently have nowhere else to go, I’m not doing so hot, and—Well, there’s a chance they won’t kill me. I think I have to take that chance.”

She looked at each of them, suddenly nervous, “If you don’t want to come, just send me on the plane by myself. This is all on me, anyway, that way if they decide—”

“I will come with you,” Carlisle said before she could even finish. He took her hand in his, sighing, and allowed the plan to solidify in his mind.

In a few hours he and Bella would be on a plane to Italy. Just him and Bella, if he had anything to say about it. If it came to the worst, then Carlisle wanted Rosalie and Emmett kept out of it. He doubted Aro would bother to track them down, given their only tangential involvement.

So, it would only be Bella, Carlisle, and the unborn child at risk.

Which, all considered, all the obstacles they now faced and the stakes raised, was a chance he was willing to take. Even if it meant walking to his own execution.

He smiled at Bella, and couldn’t help but ask, “Why must you always take things head on?”

“I don’t know,” Bella said with a small shrug, “Seems easier, in a way. Less waiting and wondering, I guess.”

Seems easier.

That was one way to look at it, one Carlisle had never considered before. Perhaps that was the secret behind Bella’s dauntless courage, that to her, it just seemed easier to always confront things immediately than let them fester.

It was why she had discovered her and Edwrad’s marriage was doomed long before Carlisle had recognized the end of his marriage with Esme.

Perhaps, then, she was right.

“I suppose I can’t argue with that,” Carlisle said, “Alright, you and I will head to Volterra.”

**Author's Note:**

> Because I am a terrible person with a weakness for cringe worthy romantic comedies and live for Edward being Edward and Carlisle sitting in the house that's on fire saying everything is fine.
> 
> Thanks for reading. Comments, kudos, and bookmarks are much appreciated.


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